An Olde Twist
by DoctorD
Summary: One Dark Lord exchanged for another. That was what the people needed. Not a Ministry, not a hero, but a true savior. A sovereign of unchallenged power, madness, and hunger. Despite the war being over, Harry reckons Hermione might be just the right person for the open job. Far better than the current Minister of Magic would be anyway. Dark GoldenTrio, marriage law politics.
1. Chapter 1

Crystal and frost licked along brick walls, casting flickering reflections off a broken cobblestone path. In a way, it was beautiful, mingling perfectly over vines that twitched, encased in ice, and splotches of black in patchwork patterns. The buildings were normally such an eyesore, crooked and crumbling, held together with a mixture of magic and desperate but fanciful craftsmanship. It was only when the chill crept in and the seasons changed that the Empire transformed into something it wasn't.

A snow dusted wonderland of slumbering _hope_.

Hope that was decidedly fickle and worthless. Hope that did nothing to keep back the smell of filth and discarded persons, unwashed and forgotten, left to rot in the darkness of a constantly shifting time and a wavering economy. But everyone wore their mask of stability, smiling with too many scars - hidden and visible - that just didn't heal quite right, exchanging ideas of change and happiness for paranoia and a grotesque sort of stagnation.

If it wasn't broke, why fix it?

But it _was_ broken. Everything. Everyone. Missing _something_ , that foundation that once made them proud, determined, thriving, and so pathetically hopeful.

All of it exchanged for callous false-efficiency and blood.

So much blood.

"Do you trust me?"

Silence met that voice at first, silence only interrupted by the sound of snow being crunch underfoot, pushed aside with each attempt to find stable footing-

"Don't ask me that again," Ronald grunted, breathy, hobbling-

"But, if there's any doubt, any doubt at all," Harry replied, almost wheezing.

"There isn't," Hermione said, tone carefully frank, as she tossed an introspective gaze along the coiled muscle, tense and trembling, within the confines of the tight black leather coat that made up Harry's back. "Be quiet."

Though her view was somewhat hindered - what with Harry's broad backside in the way - she could see Ron's face well enough at the front, his grip tight around the wriggling and long awkward lump they carried between them, wrapped in a black and writhing cloth. The way his lips pressed thin and his cheek muscles twitched she could tell he was trying to repress a smile - something unkind and no doubt a little vicious - for Harry's sake.

They were all a little… unkind. A little vicious.

She, however, had no issue allowing her lips to curl and she didn't bother hiding perfect saliva-slick teeth as she flashed them in Ron's direction.

The bundle between them bucked and Harry cursed as his grip slipped, something loud that echoed in their space.

The meaty smack of the burden hitting the cobblestone that followed seemed just as loud, and soon Ron's guffaws - grating and a bit _off_ \- joined the general ambiance of far too much _noise._

Not that they needed much silence, not as The Boy Who'd Returned and his collective. But there was a certain way things had to be… done. Especially for something as delicate as this. As _awful_ as this.

Harry said something, spat via pant from exertion, but it was absorbed by the quickly muttered ward of silence that slipped over them, a blanket of precaution well-practiced and learned. It was only once the familiar tingle of magic - her magic - solidified around them that she rolled the humming warmth and weight of her wand – taken and _hoarded_ and conquered - about her palm in idle irritation.

"I said _quiet_ ," she drawled. "Do you want to go to Azkaban, _again?"_

How long had it been, three years or four, before they'd been released? Before their licentious Empire, with its gentry and false security, had freed them from the agony of madness into the torture of normalcy. The war had done little in terms of social transformation. Their victory had only given freedom to those who had hidden. They'd wrestled the reigns of control from the victors until the heavy snap of the whipped rippled throughout their governed. The monster, the beast, was the Ministry itself - fat and warm from chewing on accomplishments it had neither earned nor deserved. It was easy, then, for childish naivety to round them up and political greed to have them punished - Order or otherwise - for crimes committed but ultimately necessary. Only the length of sentence had been negotiable but sacrifice and suffering were the same flavor no matter the upfront packaging.

Deep within the fog of her mind, trapped and crazed as she clawed at her own skin, she had heard snippets and pieces of a resistance foiled. The Ministry was emboldened, suckling prestige and power in the vacuum Voldemort's destruction had crafted. Those who sought freedom for their precious Boy had been slandered and slaughtered in the square, the blood-soaked cobblestones still in place. A reminder, constant and heavy, of who held the leash and how tight were the collars.

One lord exchanged for another.

It was only galleons, worthwhile and heavy, that had freed them in the end.

And even more for the campaign of innocence - a foolish ideal that hovered over them, a supposed debt to be paid at a later date in exchange for the Ministry making their _Golden Trio_ seem whole and tamed. Redeemed. Rehabilitated. Crafting their story into one of heroes who had done time for crimes that they refused to have pardoned.

Ronald laughed again, a hissed cackle from a straining throat.

"Sorry," Harry grunted, the sound trapped in the small bubble of magic Hermione had crafted around them, though he seemed anything but.

She watched him with an unwavering gaze as he crouched to pick up his end of the bundle with trembling gloved hands, but it wasn't fear that made his body twitch and his magic _move._

She could practically taste it on the tip of her tongue, a building _eagerness_ in the brush of his magic, in the tension that lined his chin. It broke through the suffocating grey that infused her, stirring an odd mixture of anxiety and…

And something she couldn't describe, something so _sharp_ and akin to _hunger_ that it was dizzying.

She swallowed harshly, and they continued moving, further down the alley, deeper into the darkness of Knockturn proper and the space they'd pilfered there. She left her memories behind, back at the crumbling fountain in the square they'd passed that stunk of _meat_ and magic.

When they finally reached the steel door at the end of the juncture it was Ron who shoved it open, chest heaving as runes sparked to life along the brick and threshold.

It opened smoothly, betraying functional operation despite the debilitated abandoned outside appearance and trash bundled against the alley walls. A perfect space to live, for a group that didn't wish to be found, Hermione reckoned. Especially when one considered that the Ministry kept a careful eye on Grimmauld Place and any other _suspicious_ properties. All while toting their desire to keep The Boy safe, since he was a Ministry proposed celebrity.

Though he'd nearly been a maddened corpse but a few years before.

"Do you trust me?" Harry wheezed as Ron maneuvered them toward the dip in the floor.

"Harry, I bloody swear," Ron snarled, a sound that made Hermione's skin crawl, but not unpleasantly. Not since everything had been _shifted_ and _rattled_ about in her itching brain.

"He's nervous," Hermione licked her lips, dry and cracked, as she pushed the massive door closed with but a few taps of her wand against the steel. "Shut him up."

"Put me to work, will you? That's all you two ever do, put me to work - "

"The irony," Hermione sneered. "When I'm so very sure it's _me_ that gets put to work."

And she wasn't wrong. Merlin bless the reluctant Healer that had managed to patch her back together lest they lose her intellect. They could have been trapped there, screeching behind the walls of St. Mungo's, poster children for the Ministry's rant of 'do the right thing, suffer for the people', when _they_ hadn't suffered at all. Or maybe taxes had suffered when they'd killed half the population on the whim of their anxieties.

"For the glory of Great Britain," Ron croaked as Harry helped him swing the black lump right into the center of the dipped floor with nary a care, "Praise be the Empire."

"Careful!" Hermione yelled, watching as the bundle bounced a bit before it settled, "I spent all night crafting that circle."

"It's fine," Harry chirped, his gaze unnervingly vibrant beyond the glare of his glasses, shadows that danced within a hypnotic green. "Fancy a drink?"

"Me," Ron said, though he seemed distracted, focused on the writhing of their plucked prize as his hands opened and closed. "Something light."

Since they had work to do.

When Harry turned to face her she only gave him an idle wave. Someone had to keep their wits about them, lest this turn out like the Higginson situation -

"I know you're thinking about the Higginson situation."

Hermione gave a soft sound, an idle hum, as she moved forward, past the simplistic couch and armchair situated closest to the dip in the flooring - elegant and ancient, with their dark reds that blended so well with the plush carpet between them - so she could get a better look at the hand-carved circle there, "And how could I not? This is how it started -"

Harry scoffed, "It did not-"

"And there was so much blood-"

"A very small amount of blood-"

"And then _I_ had to clean it up properly-"

"I was tired after the binding!"

Only Ron's grunt as he collapsed heavily onto the couch made Hermione pause, that and his childish whine of ' _Haaaarrry!'_ when he did so. But it was enough, and with a mumble beneath his breath The Boy went back to the corner of the space, where a glass cabinet bar was hosted, filled with an assortment of liquids held in potion decanters and large vials.

It was odd, how homey it all was compared to the state of their being, as if their one floor building could hold all the warmth they often struggled to feel. Quidditch posters of various teams littered the walls, the living space - their only open space - with its couch and chair and carpet. The bar. The bookshelf against the wall. Only the darkness that lead to the backroom - the bedroom Hermione hoarded as her own - hinted that this was anything other than a place to entertain. That and the… dip in the floor.

The dip in the floor of hard hand-packed earth and runes of salt and blood, crafted for a distinct purpose. Hermione found the mysticism of it fascinating. She enjoyed the throbbing pulse of magic that slithered through precise and perfectly drawn lines. The way it flickered when the lantern light was off. How it sang and hummed in her blood when she drew near. How it made her heart rattle and shake and her skin tingle _just right_ as it whispered of power through ritualistic ceremony.

There came the clink of a glass behind her and a snide but playful - "Careful, this is how the Higginson situation happened."

And despite having told him no in terms of beverage, Hermione still took the offered glass, "It is."

It wouldn't do well to be lured by the promise of the _wilde_ , by the release and _freedom_ that came with surrender and the heady thump of _otherness_ that swam thick in her blood and hovered within her mentality. The thought of it was enough to make her arm - _the arm_ \- burn with phantom memory.

She shivered and brought the far too fancy glass to her lips, finding sanity and safety in the warm burn of amber liquid as it traveled down her throat.

For a moment thereafter, they were all silent. Ron, unfocused as he stared at the ceiling, and Harry far too focused on her.

"We don't have to do this," he whispered.

She took another sip of her drink, "We've already started."

"But it isn't too late."

She drew her gaze away from the bucking bundle, the circle, and the whispers of magic that tickled her ears, "Isn't it?"

"We could go back," Harry glanced at the glass, into the depths of the liquid as if it held all the answers, "try again some other time-"

"And wait another ten years?" Hermione drawled.

"It's comfortable. What we currently have. The Ministry coddles us."

"So long as we remain in their metaphorical chains, yes."

"And don't you enjoy it? The interviews, the photo ops, the martyrdom?"

"We'd have to be dead to be martyrs."

Harry's lips parted but no sound came out. There wasn't a need. She knew what he'd say.

Weren't they already dead, in some way? There was no Hermione, no Harry, no Ron. Not anymore. Not with what they'd become. Were becoming.

And it was getting so hard to _resist._

One too many curses endured. Too much dark magic exposure. And then, what little stability had been left had been taken, devoured by Dementors that hadn't been decommissioned from Azkaban until _after_ their release… curious timing that.

She closed her eyes and willed herself not to shudder as he came closer, invading her personal space as he was so wont to do.

"Don't you enjoy it?" He whispered, something soft but _wicked,_ "The pennies for obedience. The way the people fall over themselves to worship -"

"Ideals," She croaked, heart pounding, "They only worship the ideals. The Ministry, to be fair, who put them there. They're afraid -"

"- to die, to be called for the slaughter as the next Dark Lord, yes…" Harry drawled. "So, they bow…"

"But not to us. Just what we stand for."

"Suffering. Rehabilitation. Obedience. Eventual elevation."

"And sacrificial heroism, romanticized and twisted into peace," Hermione mused, opening her eyes and peering coyly at her companion over the edge of her glass.

"I could get used to it, being The Lesson," Harry mumbled, fingertips among the wild curls of her hair.

"But _I_ did not get tortured to become The Lesson," Hermione grunted. "The Empire _is_ weak Harry, crumbling behind their walls, heavy… drowsy from their gluttony while I _starve_ _._ "

"But it's easier to fly when you're lighter," Harry offered.

"You aren't as poetic as I am, are you?"

Harry's musical laughter was soothing, at least, even as apprehension clawed at her chest and magic tugged at her person.

"No. I'm not."

But that was fine.

"Step back. I'm sensitive in here," Hermione said, pushing lightly at Harry's chest and shivering when her fingertips pressed against the warmth and constant buzz of his essence - so possessive and coiling. "Should have never picked this place. It's right over a leyline."

"More potent that way, isn't it?" Ron spoke up from the couch, eyes fluttering, back from the venture into his own mind.

"Yes, but…" she shook her head then, "It doesn't matter. Come over here."

Harry kept a narrowed focused look upon Ron as he hobbled over, glass held as he plucked it off the side-table. He opened his mouth then, perhaps to ask about Ron's own feelings, but they had stalled enough.

She reached out to grasp Ron's shirt, her own glass empty and dropped on the carpet, unbroken, thoughtlessly, then bid Harry a little closer so that she could do the same to his own. In return, they each grabbed a side of hers.

"There is no room for doubt. There has never been room for doubt," she started.

"But there is doubt?"

"There will always be doubt, Harry." Hermione said, "Struggling for space among the constant gray."

Beside her Ron chuckled bitterly, just as poisoned.

"But we cannot stand idle, not anymore -"

"- Especially not after bloody Higginson -"

"- Enough about Higginson," she hissed, tugging Ron closer to her person with a rough yank that nearly took him off his feet. "The point is that the Empire is sick, to remain stagnant is a disservice to ourselves and the agonies that freed us."

Harry took a shuddering breath and she felt the lick of his magic against her own. Her side pulsed with familiarity as Ron's soon joined it.

She swallowed audibly, tongue thick within her mouth, but she spoke nonetheless, past the heady corruptive sense of drowning, "The plan, your plan Harry, is asinine and madness, but we _are_ madness playing at mediocrity. And this… and this…"

Only _this_ , this sudden indescribable sensation of joining, as if she _were_ Ron, as if she _were_ Harry, as if they were _one_ and nothing else -

"This is the only way I… the only way any of us, will ever feel complete."

She felt Harry straighten at her side as she lifted his shirt, just slightly, to catch a peek of the magic _brand_ that bound them, the twin lions and one lioness that wound, tangled like vines, about a simplistic circle - the runic symbol for power - with its many forked tongues that spilled from the shape. It was over Harry's ribs and mirrored on their bodies, close to their thudding hearts and saturated with the raw _potential_ of something sacrilegious.

At least Higginson had been good for something. His blood to feed the _Olde Ones'_ river of sacrifice. His life to bring their binding to fruition. It had been a blessing in the end, despite the mess and the hurried actions. At least this time it was planned, not an induction into the darkest of bondage through the drunken fancy of men that craved adrenaline and fear.

They wanted to recreate The Circle, to achieve a greater purpose.

She drew a fingertip across the edge of Harry's marking and felt Ron's entire being tremble in the beginnings of a haunted sound.

"I want to do it," he panted, "I would never say no. _Never_ to you, Harry."

Harry's answering rumble was pleased, a growl that inspired a sharp breath from Hermione as she abruptly let them go. They didn't have time to lose themselves and Harry… everything that he did, everything that he _was_ could be so consuming.

But he reached out for Ron anyway, glass dropped and forgotten on the ground beside her own, moving large hands to grasp his shoulders and tug him forward -

Right as Hermione squeaked and ducked under the elbow of an outstretched arm, placing herself between them before Harry could initiate something they didn't have time to finish. Goodness, they hadn't even started, and they were already overwhelmed by the _call_.

"Come on, Harry! Leave room for Merlin! Back!"

He bared his teeth at her, an action she returned as she pushed at his broad chest.

"Go. The bundle. We've wasted enough time."

She gave one of his outstretched arms a hard whack and he hissed and backed up, aghast and amused.

"You hit me!"

"Yes," she drawled, "Go. The dip."

Ron chuckled and downed his glass before he too dropped it thoughtlessly, and Hermione was all at once glad she had taken the precaution to charm the bulk of Harry's Most Noble and Ancient House of Black finery that he had brought into their shared space.

"When do you need to be back?" Hermione said, watching as Harry shrugged off his jacket and tossed it toward the couch.

"Dawn, most likely. Grimmauld and then the Ministry."

"Ronald?"

The man in question moved carefully into the dip, wand drawn, dressed in simple white shirt and formal slacks.

"Four, maybe five hours. We've got an interview tomorrow and Mum wants to see you for breakfast."

"Then I'll leave at dawn with Harry. I doubt the interview will happen. We'll move to the next task, are you sure she -"

"Whenever I want. That's what she said. Whenever I want," Harry mumbled, distracted as he drew his wand and began to move it in a slow complex pattern.

"No interview?" Ron whined, wand held forward before he snapped off a brisk, "Steady, mate! You'll rip off 'is flesh!"

And indeed, as Harry began to unravel the bundle Hermione could see strips of pink-flushed flesh coming with the writhing black, stuck in patches to the breathing wriggling fabric.

"So long as 'e's alive at the end," Harry muttered, brow creased.

"He won't be if you keep at it -"

"Ron, I've got it!"

"You've got it? You've got a lot of that bloke's skin on the strips is what you've got -"

"- piss off!"

She left the men to it and turned toward the winding book shelves against the wall, hands behind her back as she rocked on her heels. Searching… seeking…

When the first scream reached her ears, she'd found what she was looking for and carefully, with a flick of wand, began to pull the book from the shelf.

It was just one of many others that they had stowed away in their shared space. The shelves were filled with all manners of literature. Spellwork of _olde_ , ancient, wilde… _dark_ but so very potent, _addicting_. Even without touching the books directly just being near them made her brain _itch_. They, the books they'd taken from Harry's home, were wicked and vile and _loved_. To see the Ministry trample through Harry's home with the idea that they could pluck and pick whatever they pleased had been more than enough reason to hide them. It was a brilliant collection, if a bit dangerous to handle without… precautions. Which was why, of course, Hermione handled the book through a levitation spell instead of her bare hands.

The last time she'd done that she'd been lost to the words. Reading and reading and reading until Harry had blasted the book right there on her lap. But, the damage had been done. She couldn't _unsee_ what she'd memorized and the urge to _utilize_ what she'd been taught was so… overwhelming.

The risk of being a good student, she supposed.

But they still had many more items from Grimmauld to move and many more discoveries to make. Still, this one, this book before her, with spine crafted from bone and a cover that looked suspiciously like tawny flesh…

This book was more than just casual reading material.

"Alright, he's steady," Ron called from the dip, while his wand oozed a peculiar electric blue light, one that immobilized the wide-eyed male at the center. "Taking your sweet time over there, 'Moine?"

She snorted, "Is he still alive? I don't hear any screaming."

"I silenced 'em. Lose a little flesh and everyone starts screeching."

A little? As Hermione approached the dip she could see that the poor man had lost a _lot_. The folded twitching strips of black were patchworked in skin. Anywhere clothing hadn't touched him was now exposed, just twitching meat and…

Wait.

"What did you do with his clothes?"

Ron gave her a wide boyish smile, "They get in the way during clean-up, don't you think?"

She narrowed her gaze.

"And… well, we are the same size."

She sighed.

"Hermione," Harry whispered.

"If you ask me again-"

"-do you trust me?"

She swallowed harshly, devouring the biting remark balanced on the tip of her tongue. Instead she looked at him, _really_ looked at him, and found all the emotions she often struggled to feel.

Eagerness. Apprehension. Sincerity. _Fear_.

That she'd run away. That this would go to hell. That they'd return to the silence, separation, and endless agonies of their cages… alone, forever alone.

But when she'd agreed to Harry's foolish plan she'd promised herself that she would march - with tactical precision and everything she had - all for a bit of adventure. All so that she could feel alive again.

And because something within Harry, perhaps that downtrodden lost little boy that he'd been, craved an aspect of his existence that he could control.

So, she would let him control this.

"I trust you. I trust you to be my anchor, my leash. Both of you."

"And you'll make a brilliant catalyst, Hermione."

She smiled then, something genuine. "Thank you, Ronald."

He gave her a thumbs-up before he turned to Harry and nodded once.

She shed her coat, her shoes, and her smart business jacket. She kicked off her socks, unbuttoned her blouse, and shimmed out of her skirt. She _refused_ to get any of her things dirty, especially things purchased with Empire galleons. If she had to be a slave, she'd be a beautiful and smartly dressed one.

So, she stood, unabashedly, in her black bra and red knickers, with the deeply rich golden-brown of her skin only interrupted by a dusting of russet colored freckles and all the scars of the war. The raised skin that went across her chest from the center of her breast to her belly. The scars that peppered her back from laying on the hard-edged rocks of Azkaban. The bright, glaring _word_ that pulsed, humming from the magic she called to her flesh, and the _brand_ on the side of her body, identical to Harry's, identical to Ron's, unifying them as one before the eyes of the slumbering gods.

Ron released a nervous giggle, one echoed by Harry's deep chuckle as she stepped into the dip, wand tossed his way, book eagerly pulled into the orbit of magic she produced.

And then, once he secured her wand - and her unspoken surrender, in giving him such an intimate piece of her being - he handed her a dagger.

 _Her_ dagger. The woman who plagued her nightmares, who spilled secrets across her mentality, who haunted her in a manner so metaphysical Hermione had no proper way to describe it. That otherness, the madness that lurked in her blood… the curse that made everything seem dull and then suddenly too bright, too _real_ -

That's where it had started, hadn't it? In the ache of her arm? The warmth that had whispered escape, that it could free her from the Dementor crafted agonies she'd been through. She was possessed in a way, half herself, half _someone else_. And at first, she had fought, pushing at the _urges_ , embracing the numb and pain brought by the Dementors… but salvation, true peace, would only be given if she…

"Hermione," Harry said, voice soothing, "come back. Hermione, there's work to do."

She tilted her head, heard the words but could scarcely process them behind the _thoughts_ that came, unbidden, whenever she felt this dagger. The blade felt _right_ in her grip the handle heavy but alive, pulsing… It's magic caressed her skin and her own reacted, eager and willing as _laughter_ rattled across her mentality and-

She took a sharp breath, a wheeze that made her chest feel tight, _too full_ , "I'm here. I... I'm here."

She shook her head, pushing away the suffocating weight of a phantom body against her own and the _thrill_ of pain that swam within her, tugging at an addiction she would not indulge.

Well, it _was_ called a curse for a reason. Their dabbling in magics untamed didn't help, but she wouldn't fall off the cliff yet. Not today.

"Give it to me," she croaked, gaze upon the man as she walked forward and stood over him. "If I lose myself -"

"A high possibility," Ron interrupted, as he withdrew from his pocket one defunct Time-Turner and deposited it into her open palm.

"Then you need to wake me up, no matter how magic-drunk I am. We'll need to debrief."

She sat then, with very little grace, upon their victim's chest, forcing air out of his lungs and getting a bit of blood upon her thighs, "Filthy."

With the Turner now around her neck she leaned forward, breath steady and slow - _keep your mind, ignore the haze_ \- as she bundled the hair of one Pius Thicknesse around her unoccupied hand. While the other stroked the handle of the blade as it rested against her.

She craned his head back, gently at first, before she yanked his neck into an arch. She heard an intake of breath as she did so. Ron. Possibly Harry.

Her own breathing shook as excitement slithered through her, brought forth by the sense of _power_ in her grip, by the wide bulging eyes of their prey, and the song of the leylines invading her mentality.

Yes, she thought, I want to sing too.

Anything.

 _Anything._

To feel alive. To ease the hunger. To settle the whispers, the cackling, the screaming, across her mind.

Anything to pay back the Empire for her pain and time.

For the betrayal that broke them.

She rolled her shoulders and shifted slightly, just so she could place the blade flat against the arch of his neck. She could see his pulse flutter, feel the way his body strained under the power of their bindings. Trapped, saturated in his fear, and she wanted him to drown in it.

Because, it was beautiful. This one little moment, Pius' strangulation by terror.

"Is this the one who gave the order?" Hermione whispered.

"One of them," Ron whispered back, wrapped up in the spell, in the trance that settled warmly over them as the circle sprang to life.

A sheen spilled around them, black and thick like ink, snapping in thin wisps as it spiraled up, trapping them in a tower of changing shadows and writhing ravenous patterns.

Hermione began to mumble the spelled words from the book that hovered closer. It gave her its secrets in Latin and she spoke them to the _wilde_.

Give me this power, this security.

"They'll replace him," Harry said, his voice warbled, warped by the pressure of magic that rose as the black tower struck the ceiling and caused the entire building to tremble. "Someone else. Kingsley is said to be running."

"And it'll be the same," Ron hissed, paying no mind to the walls that sparked with runes meant to keep the magic within - unnoticed and untraceable - and not spilling outside. "One master for another. It's the olde blood that really have the power, and not even the supposed _right_ sort, not anymore."

Her ears began to ring, it was difficult to make Harry out-

"We will change the system then. We will seek to hold the chains. We will bring The Circle and dictate the lines. This is our best bet, our last shot. Without this, we have nothing."

Pius began to tremble beneath her, thrashing as magic slipped in from the leylines, as it _stabbed_ into the open wounds crafted by Harry's haphazard actions and wriggled under his skin. She gasped as that magic sought to escape him, beating at the cage his body represented to a drum-song she could hear reverberate throughout her skull. She pressed the knife in, watched the blade part his flesh as blood bubbled to the surface…

But it wasn't enough, the magic whispered, not yet, even as Pius' blood now began to dance and wriggle, transformed into thin wisps and tendrils, to the beat of the magic that filled her.

"It's extreme," Ron said. "Worse than just running for Minister -"

"It has to be," Harry replied, "The Minister is always weak. Corruptible. Our reality needs more than that. We will dictate what is right, we will craft the culture. We will become the sun, the moon, and the stars if we must. Power built upon power and _they_ will beg and scream for us to save them. They'll soon crawl in the streets asking for salvation, but not from a Ministry. Something else, and even then, we will gift them with something _greater_."

She hissed, felt the strain within her mind, as she read the final line of the spell that would seal their fates.

A scream then, Harry's call of, "It's working!"

But she couldn't tell. She couldn't feel her body. What she could feel was _life_ , specifically Pius' as she pressed further, motions automatic to feed the blade, to feed the power within her and create the _seal_. His blood gurgled and spilled, twined upward, sentient and infused, before it struck the Turner around her neck. It tugged her down with an unprecedented force until she was close, so close to Pius face she could see with wide eyes the moment his own began to flicker and dim.

And then, suddenly, there was _agony_ , a sensation akin to being torn _asunder_. Magic sought something within her, something _precious_ and irreplaceable, and it sought to _crush it_. She bowed over, struck by the pain of it, by the pricking plucking sensation of needles clasping skin and pulling it away from bone and muscle. Heat collected in her chest, a pulsating inferno, that ravaged some untouchable portion of her being-

"You've got to pull!" A voice, but she couldn't identify the concept of it. What was a voice? What was a body, a being? There was only magic. Magic and suffering.

"She's gonna lose it, just like Higginson -"

"- not _now_ , Ron!"

Ron.

Yes.

She could perceive that.

And she could also perceive that her _soul_ was on fire.

One breath. Then another, and she managed to drop the blade. The blood - so much of it - soaked the front of her body as it clung like live tentacles to the Turner, but she didn't seek to break the contact. Her fingers. Her arms. She could move them, shift them toward her chest and… and with a harsh breath speak the word of separation -

And despite the fact that no air remained in her lungs, and that the word was barely audible, something began to form between her and the Turner.

Another bond.

She felt balance shift. Her vision tunneled, the pain eased as the _thing_ the magic had grabbed onto began to move, pushed beyond her person into the Turner proper.

Then, sudden and absolute _ecstasy._

She moaned as something _snapped_ , a desperate needy sound filled with all the heat that began to ebb from her chest and out to the rest of her body. The pain, the soreness of separation, curled inward, a strike against her belly that had her short of breath and _melting_. Now the fury of magic wasn't searing, now it caressed her skin with longing, a familiar _addictive_ lover of wild aggression.

Exhaustion came on the tail end of desire and she toppled, nerves alive and humming as the Turner about her neck throbbed like a second heartbeat. Sluggish. Rhythmic. And satisfied.

Harry caught her as he collapsed onto his knees, her upper half held in his arms as he hissed as if stung. Ron was quick to hover over her, face flushed and panting, stimulated by the expression of greater magic. He ran his hands along her body and she trembled, arched up like a cat, drunk on power and success.

"Bloody hell, she feels… she feels…!"

Ron couldn't find the words for it. Harry only made odd strained sounds in the back of his throat.

She felt it was an appropriate response, considering her own state of being. But it _had_ worked.

The creation of her Horcrux. The burning boil of magic throughout her _blood._

And the scalding erasure of the mundane from her very _being_.

Because they would give the Empire a gift. A proper being of power and order. They would bring Great Britain under absolute authority and the people _would beg_ for it. Their gracious benevolence -

\- from their immortalized Sovereign.


	2. Chapter 2

Hermione groaned, rolled over, and grunted as she was met with a solid wall of snoring flesh.

Into a shoulder, she slurred, "Should have been you."

The warmth at her back sighed softly, saturated with content, "We talked about this. You're more charismatic." There was silence for a moment, before Harry finished, "They thought I was crazy, once. No way would they go for it. Boy Who Lived or not."

She stretched just a bit, kicking at Ron's thicker legs out of playful spite, "You're their hero. And you're still crazy."

"So are you," Harry shifted slightly, withdrawing his arm from around her hip, which she noticed was devoid of undergarments to cover them, "to both of those statements. But you have a better eye for politics. Have you been reading the books?"

"The boring and mundane accounts of Phineas Black's many lordships and pureblood ideology? Yes. Have you?"

"Of course. I intend to help you, even if it's a slog to get through."

"Quiet," Ron growled, stirred no doubt by their speech, or Hermione's kicking.

They ignored him. "The Olde Ways are very binding, through them we'll control the slighted olde bloods, who the Ministry has harmed either unjustly or not."

"Correct," Hermione whispered, "and the line issue?"

"Should be irrelevant with the power we've gained," Harry mused, "but no worries, Ron has an idea."

"Ron, an idea?" Hermione said, dryly.

"Don't be rude," he grunted at her front. "I'm a master tactician. A strategist. I've got you something. Something good."

She barely heard his muttering through the pillow, "What is it?"

"Dinner. I'll have it all for you then. Gotta ask," here he yawned and flopped until he was on his stomach, "the Venerable Lord Weasley for a favor."

Hermione shifted slightly and reached over, setting cocoa colored fingertips to draw patterns over the scars on Ron's back, curious, "Oh? And he wouldn't be… suspicious?"

"Father is a bit dull but his heart's right," Ron muffled into the pillow. " 'sides, it won't be anything to flag."

That was good enough for her.

"Then you best get up," Hermione said before she twisted about until she was on her back, gazing wearily at the ceiling above - charmed to appear like constantly changing constellations. "They watch the Burrow too, you know. They wouldn't like it if they thought you lived beyond the proper parameters of the average Ministry approved wizard."

"I know," he snorted.

But he didn't move. Not until Harry suddenly shoved him, expressing enough force to cause his body to flop off the bed and onto the floor with a cattish yowl.

Hermione didn't repress her twinkling laughter.

As Ron, tangled somewhat in the sheets, began to curse and buck like a suffocating fish, Harry drew his attention back to her.

"How are you feeling?"

Good, was the first word that came to mind.

Gray was the second.

"Yearning," was the word she settled on, "like there's something else I need. A familiar but different sense of otherness."

"A goal then."

"Or more spellwork, something like that."

When Ron finally came to his feet, flustered and scowling, Hermione spared him a glance. With stubble and wild tangled hair, long and uncombed, he looked rather feral. His expression didn't make him appear any more civilized, especially when he yanked his shirt off a nearby desk with enough force to _hear_ it.

"Don't pout, mate."

"Harry, I would _never_ , without warning, _attack_ you in the manner I have been attacked this morning-"

"-attack you, really? And while we're on the subject I believe you _have_ attacked me, rather viciously might I add. Far more so than the gentle coaxing I gave you to get you out of bed."

" _That_ was a misunderstanding, I was not aware that the spell would ride me like that-"

"-and I," Harry interrupted, speaking in a tone that was very matter-of-fact, "was not aware that you'd gracelessly fall out of bed like that."

She knew he had been. Still, it was wiser not to partake in the morning squabble. She let them have their spat, settling with empty mind into a sense of odd domestication. It was here, in the bed they sometimes shared, unable to be separated and only able to chase their individual terrors away within the grip of one another, that she pondered on their future and her tenuous place within it.

That and the warm pulsing piece of jewelry settled between her breast.

"Don't be late to work today," Ron sneered, kicking one of Harry's shoes into the far corner of the room before, with hands upon his hips, he glared at Hermione, "And you, they keep asking me about you-"

"Ministry work is so very dreary," she responded, casual and cold, "not as exciting as keeping you both sane and alive."

Harry shifted beside her, if only so he could rest the warmth of his palm against her shoulder. "They ask me too."

"And what do they suspect I'd like to do for them? Mandatory Aurorship, with you two?"

Their brief and unsettling vacation within Azkaban hadn't done any favors for their careers. Heroes they may be but working in any sort of political capacity had been ruined by the new gentry. Not sound minds, they'd said. Azkaban changes you, far too much for civilized debate. So, she'd left, a _mudblood_ meant to go unnoticed and remain demure in the face of those who knew better while Ron and Harry had been recruited with subtle threats against their stability into a more physical role. At least that placement had done well for them. They had their gold safely in vaults, Harry more so than either of them, and they had the peace that granted. If Ron and Harry were occupied doing _good_ work for the Ministry, then they didn't need to be watched, did they?

Let them be coddled and smile for the papers, Hermione found enough solace in her personal work and the odd potion commission or two.

"They think Harry and I are catering to your delicate sensibilities," Ron snorted. "They'll ask you again, I bet, 'n real soon too. Maybe try and get you in the creatures department with Luna."

And wouldn't that be fun?

She nuzzled slightly into the warmth of the pillow before her, "Are you sure? Luna didn't spend as much time in the cage as we did. Perhaps they think her properly sane to crawl around in the muck."

She, on the other hand, held no such hope nor the naive assumption that such work would be fulfilling. There was nothing more exhilarating than the weight of her wand and the hum beneath her skin. _Nothing_.

Except, maybe, the aspect of control.

Her days of naive house-elf savior were over.

"Tell them I'm caring for Grimmauld. Harry is often so busy, and it could use a woman's touch."

"We do," Harry said.

And that _was_ the truth, to be fair. She did spend hours upon hours in the dreary ominous home, combing through various tombs and carefully packing interesting artifacts away to be transferred to the flat at her leisure. The portraits had stopped howling at her some time ago, which made tinkering in the halls a far more lucrative venture. After all, it was difficult to screech at the mudblood when she…

"You'll lose your mind in there if you stay all day talking to those portraits," Ron snorted.

She licked her lips, "They're starting to respect me."

"Only because you act so odd in there. Like you know something. And now I feel like they know you know something."

She rumbled a bit, a husky laugh, "I'm not me in here, not all the time. There are some things I know, and some things I forget. But the portraits _have_ been talking to me… lately. Telling me what I've forgotten."

And, sometimes, she remembered that too, even when she fell into one of her _moods_. But the house, _that_ house and those that haunted it, spoke to her on a level far too metaphysical for her to logically decipher.

"And I _really_ don't like that," Ron grumbled, but didn't push further.

"If you were nicer to them they might stop screaming at you too. I'm sick of hearing it, is all. Blood traitor this, blood traitor that."

Ron huffed and turned his back to them, hopping on one foot as he shimmied into his pants, "And they are still calling you _muddy,_ you know."

"Aunt Wally said it's endearing. I'm the only _muddy_ she'll speak with. She's not even that nice to Harry and he's got some of that Black blood shifting his brains."

" _Aunt Wally_? _"_ Ron twisted around so fast he almost fell on his arse. "Great Godric, Harry! She's calling the bag Aunt Wally now?"

Harry sniffed, more amused than horrified, "She's the one who helped us find the olde Lord Black's grimoires. She thinks teaching, ah, Hermione some culture is a noble action."

"Furthermore, if we really want this to work, I need to be…"

For a moment they were all silent as Hermione wrinkled her nose, searching for the right word.

"A certain way," Ron finished the statement instead. "Yeah, better you than me."

"We all need to know it, the cultural stuff, if we want to appeal to _them_."

Ron bobbed his head, but Hermione wasn't sure if he had processed Harry's statement, not until he-

"Oh, bloody hell! Really? You want me to study and you want me to study _that_? I'd rather dig around in the blood ritual books again-"

"Right. No way on that. Not after the last thing you wanted to try."

Hermione laughed, knowing the sound followed Ron's pouting form all the way to the floo.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Breakfast was the usual affair.

Ron, pretending to have slept at the Burrow for the night and not just a portion, had come down the stairs fresh from his shower with a wave and a brilliant smile. He welcomed her with open arms, playing his role with startling perfection-

"I'm so glad you could come, 'Moine! I wasn't sure if you had time to accept the invitation. Haven't seen you since…"

Here he waited for a moment, while she basked in the heavy sense of domestication and ancient magic that consumed his family home beside a solemn faced George, who looked unfocused as he struggled, even now, to maintain a balance between emptiness and grief.

She tried not to stare at him, to become entranced by his sorrow. As even this was beautiful to her, his torment, and she wondered what it would feel like to _know_ … no, she craved to feel _more_ than the sickness that hovered on the edge of her mind, twisting up all her thoughts and making her arm ache.

Instead, she smiled, something slight and shy, "Three days before this one, wasn't it? When I went to have tea with Luna."

"And how is she? Luna?"

"Doing well enough, she says the Ministry is thinking of vault compensation after the year she spent in Azkaban."

George twitched beside her as his expression slipped from apathy to disgust with an underlying fury.

"Should have been faster," he mumbled under his breath, "nobody should have been there. But we didn't have any power. Lost my mind and-"

"Now now," Ron said, though his tone was odd and strained. He lifted his hands, one for George shoulder and the other for Hermione's as he turned them from the foyer and toward the kitchen proper, where the smell of food began to waft forward. "Best not to think about the past, right brother? What's done is done-"

"It wasn't right," George hissed under his breath. "They didn't have the right to take any of you-"

"-The Ministry is understanding, George. And we did break the law," Ron's smile didn't waver, but there was something that twisted in the shadows of his gaze, something _hungry_ and wild.

And _furious_.

"You were all… we were all just kids and-"

Hermione lifted her hand, heard the choke in George tone and knew he suffered from more than just delusions of mistreatment and a lack of justice. She gently took one of George's in her own and took great care to rub her thumb across the knuckles of his balled fist.

"Let's not talk about any of that. Not here. Not now," she whispered, eyeing Ron who gave a subtle nod, just enough to let her know she could continue, "I've missed you, everyone really. Let's have breakfast, I can't stay long."

With a shiny gaze George lifted his other hand, his smile weak, false, filled with the mistakes of his past. "I've missed you too, I ah… sorry, it's not gentlemanly to lose oneself in that sort of talk before a lady."

Hermione played her part, giggling girlishly, "Oh, I'm not a lady, George. I'm just me."

Charming and ravenous. But a lioness nonetheless.

"Nonsense," he muttered, leading her to a nearby chair, "you're more of a lady than the common filth chewing on the power of their silly little lords-"

"-George!"

With a gaggle of plates floating behind her, Molly was quick to interrupt George's frank and, if Hermione was honest, somewhat treasonous tirade.

"We don't talk like that at the table," The Weasley matriarch scowled, brows furrowed, "It's not a space for… for that."

Opinions and politics, Hermione figured.

But she didn't have time to ponder it, for she was soon swept up in a crushing hug, one she returned with little reluctance. It was pleasant to be touched, even if it was done so with a sense of desperation. Despite Molly's pretty high-blood robes and lily smelling perfume she was still bound as tightly as any other. Being the Madam of the Venerable Lord Weasley was no doubt more of a headache than not.

"Hermione! Praise be to the Empire! I haven't seen you in so long."

"Praise be," Hermione answered casually, though the words felt heavy on her tongue and crude, burning like acid, "I'm glad to be here this morning. Will Lord Weasley be joining us?"

"It's just Arthur, dear," Molly muttered, as if nervous, "You don't have to do that. Not here. Not ever."

Hermione made a soft sound, a curious hum, "It wouldn't be proper, you know. Now that the Ministry has returned his seats. What does he do again?"

As Molly let her go Ron, with a flick of wand, began to redirect all the various plates from hovering to on the table, "He's the ah, Esteemed and Honorable Head of the new and improved Department of Muggleborn Affairs."

"A bunch of rubbish, that," George croaked.

"George," Molly grunted, but seemed more or less distracted with smoothing Hermione's purposely wrinkled clothing out. "He's repairing the damage that _woman_ did, Umbridge. He is making some change, able to check the Muggles for damage to any Muggleborn children they have, so that nothing… untoward can happen to them-"

Like how it happened to Harry.

"-And," she cleared her throat, "it allows the Ministry to keep better track of them. In tandem with Hogwarts he's able to provide preliminary education so they don't come here bamboozled and such…"

Or with the belief that they were better than the powers in charge. Brainwash them young, endear them to you as they fumble, lost and vulnerable, in a world beyond their imaginations.

"But enough of all that, sit sit!" Molly waved her hands as if she could wave away the discomfort of the conversation.

Arthur's job put galleons in their vault and gave them a sliver of power, power that they had used for years attempting to free them. She could respect that, at least. But ultimately, Sacred Twenty-Eight or not, they were still lesser nobles and maybe content to be such.

Chewing on her bottom lip, Molly croaked, "E-either way, he won't be joining us, deary. Not today, I'm afraid. He left early, to look into some records for Ronald."

"Oh?" Hermione took her seat, napkin unfolded and upon her lap and allowed George to serve her with thin-pressed lips.

"Oh yes, what was it again?"

Ron didn't bother looking up from his plate as he began to shove an unnecessary pile of eggs onto it, "Eh? Oh yeah. Some line stuff. You know, they're looking more closely at that sort of thing these days, Mum. I think they're going to push it."

With a softly uttered 'thanks' to George, Hermione pulled her plate closer, distracted momentarily by the rich smell of bacon. Her stomach grumbled, greedy, but she repressed the urge to devolve into a pig. No matter how… _hungry_ she was, she knew it would do little to end the ache in her being. Using more potent magic, dabbling in wilde arts, had a way of making someone _always_ feel ravenous.

"You don't really believe that, do you? It's atrocious, not to mention a tad unfair."

"The Ministry runs on efficiency, not fairness, Mum." Ron snorted around a mouthful of eggs.

Disgusting.

She kicked him under the table, hiding a smile behind her glass as he choked and huffed like a beast. She ignored his returned sneer.

"As I was saying," Ron said, guttural and displeased, "there's been a lot of missing wizards and witches to account for. Also, the rehabilitation program-"

George snorted.

"-hasn't been running as smoothly. They need guidance to assist with reinstatement. Society is weary because they have no-"

"They aren't," Molly lifted a hand, mostly to pinch the bridge of her nose, "t-they aren't dogs, Ronald. They don't need leashes."

Only the _Golden Trio_ had to have those.

"No no, they aren't dogs but, the Ministry feels that they would be more… comfortable… Ah, _good_ , if they were…"

Ron paused, shrugging listlessly and placed a piece of bacon in his mouth, sentence left unfinished. That was the end of that conversation. Hermione would have to get him alone later, to ask what wasn't being said behind false-loyalty to the Empire. She really should subscribe to the Prophet again, but would the owls be able to find the flat?

"It doesn't matter," George rumbled. "In the end they'll do what they want to do. Whose line do they have you investigating?"

Hermione narrowed her eyes for a moment, head tilted as she bit into a piece of toast. So, the Ministry _were_ investigating bloodlines now. Had they always done that?

"Patil, the twins? Do you remember them? Ministry heard word that a great-grandmother or something is possible royalty back in India. They want confirmation and then a discussion with the Head. Probably just want to know how many vaults they've got at Gringotts."

Hermione wasn't sure if that was true or not, but it seemed irrelevant to ask. Ron knew what he was doing when it came to his family. She'd leave him to his masquerade.

"Hermione," Molly said, drawing her attention away from her plate, which was probably going to need a second helping, "are you bothered by it?"

Her silence had been mistaken for discomfort, she cleared her throat, "Oh no. They must know what they're doing. Harry says the program does work well for some. It's all about introducing the patient to a new line of thought, I hear."

It was about control and conditioning. Withholding family heirlooms and vaults until one adhered to a Ministry-Empire stated mandate. When obedience was won they were rewarded, returned the aspects of their being that had always belonged to them through might and magic. They were the first to be introduced, the children on the _other_ side, to such actions. Those who were deemed untrustworthy and crazed, burdened by the order of the Dark Lord with the desperate need to be cleansed. The bulk of them, with their seized properties and cultural shunning, were little more than trinkets for the Ministry to dangle. 'Look at them', the Ministry said, 'Look at what we've done to them. For you! Look at what we make them do!'. Sacred or otherwise, those who did not bow were pushed aside to the general populous, or worse, while the Ministry families continued to hoard more and more power to themselves, twisting themselves into the Order of Nobility.

The high and the lesser gentry.

But those seized galleons did little for the people themselves. Their buildings were still crooked, their streets warped and stained. At least the Weasleys, despite their status, gave as much as they got. Even if they still dressed the part and attended court among the Wizengamot, nodding their heads and making no real change. But then, what power did they have to do so, with their meager two seats?

The tolerated laughing stock within the House of Lords.

It was enough to make her wonder how many galleons within their vault belonged to others who could never reclaim them.

"Malfoy's doing well enough," George said, if only to keep the conversation going and keep back the overwhelming silence.

"He is," Ron confirmed, "Harry had a vested interest in their family, with what his mum did and all."

"It was very kind of her," Molly said, though she seemed somewhat uncomfortable, "donating so much to help us. W-when we started losing hope."

She had never been told the amount of gold it had taken to get the Ministry to release them. When marching in the streets had only ended in lost numbers and slaughtered wizard-meat. Far more than the Weasleys owned, that much was sure.

"It was half, I hear," Ron croaked, "half the wealth and a bit more beside, eh?"

"Harry was able to give some back," Hermione said, gaze carefully upon the Weasley madam, "when the Ministry allowed him to reclaim his vaults he did the transfer as Lord Black."

Donations for non-house members weren't heard of otherwise, not if you didn't want them to be tracked and snatched.

"Won't give him his seats though, will they?"

"Not yet," Hermione said. "They wanted him to focus on his work and recovery-"

George suddenly slammed his fists on the kitchen table, causing Molly to squeal and the new fine china – for visitors only, Molly had once said - to rattle, "We've been recovering for years! When will they let us _breathe_?!"

Ron was up and out of his chair so fast it flew back, scratching across the wooden floor and creating a ghastly sound. He stomped over, grimace in place and cheeks flushed before he reached out and hooked his hands under a sobbing George's armpits. He pulled him up and out of his chair with a strength she hadn't known he possessed and hobbling, began to lead his brother to the stairs.

"Alright, that's enough of that." Ron's voice came from the hall, "That's not how we behave in front of a lady."

"I just want to be _free_ ," she heard George wheeze, voice thick with his sorrow, "they follow us everywhere. They dictate what we do! I just want to be free!"

Soon the sound of Ron speaking in low soothing tones began to fade, leaving Hermione alone in the kitchen at the table with a quietly crying Molly, who reached out for a tablecloth to dab at her eyes.

"I'm so sorry, Hermione. I didn't want you to see this," Molly made an odd sound in the back of her throat, the sound of a mother trying to be strong for her children. "It's been almost ten years and we're still a bit…"

Broken.

"That's alright," Hermione chirped, expression chipper in startling contrast to the atmosphere around her as she lifted her plate.

She'd give Molly something to do, to take her own mind off the madness and the laughter that rattled about her head.

She'd free them all _very_ soon.

"May I have some more? It's all really good."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

They heard her voice before they saw her, a honeyed tone of aristocratic nature, soft and musical. Hermione swallowed thickly, her chest tight as her heart rattled against her ribs. She felt _awake_ , afflicted by sudden brilliance and the cascading wash of memories and voices. She flared her nostrils and fought against a sickening twist of emotions, the response to fight, run, or… or something else, something _worse_. Her skin crawled with sudden longing, and for one split moment she forgot who she was, where she was. All she could think about was going to that voice and… and _something_ , but she wasn't sure what. She just knew that some portion of her, that part that _wasn't_ her, missed the sound of that voice something _bad_.

But then Harry was there, Harry with his hand against her back. Harry, who kept her in the massive elaborate foyer of spiraling gold and silver patterns.

"Are you there, Hermione? Do we need to-"

She reached out and clutched his shoulder, her gaze flickering through shadows and visions tinted in red and gray, shadows she didn't understand, memories that flashed then vanished. Memories that teased her knowing she _wouldn't_ _remember_ experiencing them-

"It's me… I'm fine," she whispered, sighing softly when Harry's hand tugged lightly on the Turner about her neck, reminding her of the constant heady beat of magic there – her own and something _more_.

"Alright. I wasn't sure what would happen if we came here, there's so much about the curse we don't know, won't ever know, and magic _lingers_ here. You're body _needs_ -"

"It's fine," she said, firm and determined. They had work to do and soon Ron would join them. She swallowed past the odd churn in her belly and focused on the voice. "She'll be in a mood, won't she?"

"I don't like when she talks to it. She forgets everything else, sometimes." Harry mused.

"Then we should remind her that we're here for dinner."

"Of course."

Taking her arm in his own Harry led them forward, forgoing the call for a house-elf. Instead he took them down a winding pathway of glaring portraits and golden sculptures of flaunting peacocks.

It was only when they reached a room-

"Library," Harry muttered.

-that they paused.

"This is the right thing to do," the voice said.

"A foolish venture, if you ask me," another replied, gravel and plum.

"And who asked you, dead and gone as you are?"

"The lonely widow, I suspect, who has no one but the dead and gone."

There's a sharp intake of breath from the first voice, feminine and soft, and during the break in conversation, Harry escorted them in.

"Madam Malfoy are you talking to the portrait again?"

She twisted around, startled with gaze somewhat wide in guilt - like a child caught with their hand in the chocolate frog jar.

It gave Hermione the moment she needed to access the space, to note the bookshelves that seemed to consume the room, taking up residence on every wall. The only blank wall was where the fireplace sat, lonely with one or two pictures upon the mantle. It was, instead, mostly home to the massive silver-framed portrait of one Lucius Malfoy, whose expression was twisted up as if he'd eaten something sour.

"What's all this? Again, Narcissa?"

She cleared her throat, a graceful act of hidden coyness, "Oh dear, again? Well, I cannot deny Lord Bla - ahem - Auror Potter into the manor, Lucius. That would be improper."

"Auror Potter surely has better things to do than tromp about my estate with his _mud-_ "

"-Ms. Granger, Mr. Malfoy-" Harry greeted smoothly.

"That is Lord Malfoy-"

"-I think not," Harry interrupted, rocking heel to toe in his expensive shiny shoes, "Draco is Lord Malfoy now. Draco, my sweet Draco."

Harry's sing-song tone was not endearing. Lucius, especially, seemed cross at being addressed in such a way. Hermione only hummed in slight amusement, her gaze not upon the fuming portrait - that Harry shuffled over to cover with a laugh that seemed more cruel than not - but upon the woman in the room.

The woman who returned her gaze. The woman who looked as if she had aged not one year in the last few Hermione had sat rotting away. It should have been a great shame to remain as beautiful as she had, with a full crown of two-toned hair, black and white and horridly luscious. Only the slight bags beneath her gaze said anything else, and she knew they spoke of endless nights and a lack of sleep. To many evenings spent alone with nothing more than broken thoughts and a canter of firewhiskey.

"Cute," Narcissa said, her sudden address enough to make Hermione inhale sharply, "you seem to know a lot about broken thoughts. Though, I appreciate that you believe I'm still beautiful."

Hermione smiled then, something lopsided and _off_ as she clicked her tongue against the back of perfect teeth, "You read my thoughts? That's terribly impolite."

"Your thoughts are loud, and…" Narcissa's voice trailed off before she swallowed harshly, "Well, it matters little. I thought Potter was going to teach you how to shield properly."

"We've a great deal to do, I'm working on it." Harry grunted, drawing the curtain closed upon Lucius portrait and lifting his wand to mutter a quick charm upon it, "I thought I told you frequent conversations with Mr. Malfoy would be frowned upon by the Ministry. They don't like the idea of you cooped up in here, with no witch or wizard interaction."

Narcissa, with all the haughty airs of someone born into nobility with the ideals they could do no wrong, only stalked to a nearby armchair where an untouched bottle of elven brandy sat, "Lucius is a wizard."

"He's a memory," Harry answered pleasantly, hands now shoved in his pockets. "Did you owl Ms. Tonks like I asked you too?"

Her shoulders twitched, the only sign she was not as perfect at apathy as she tried to be, as she poured herself a thimble of amber liquid.

"Madam Malfoy?" Harry said, patient.

"I… have, yes."

There's something anxious in her tone, barely covered by the mask Hermione knew all Slytherins wore so well.

"And what did she say?"

"She wants me to visit."

"And have you?"

"No," Narcissa said, and Hermione could practically imagine the older woman pouting - had she less control over her facial features.

"You should do that. Next week, I think."

She glared at him from over her shoulder, eyes somewhat narrowed in introspection while Harry smiled thinly, calm as the shadows swam among his gaze.

She lowered her own first.

How curious.

But not more so than Harry's magic. A magic that rose around them, thick and cloying. Hermione swayed slightly as she felt it touch her own, calling to something deep and _dark_. Now she could hear it, something thumping in the walls like a stuttering heartbeat, corruptive and heady. It was _him_ , Harry, spilling his intention out in a manner she had only known one figure to do before. The wards reacted to him, flashing briefly in symbols of gold before they settled, accepting and familiar. If Lucius had ever had power here, if his magic had once been infused in any of the property, it had been absorbed some time ago, replaced by Harry's presence and the blanket that covered them.

She inhaled deeply and shook herself as Narcissa quickly swallowed her shot of liquor.

"What can I get for you and Ms. Granger?"

"A glass of wine would do, any wine."

Narcissa nodded, a bit pale as she began to leave the library, "Then I'll return with something… red."

And she slipped through the door.

It quickly occurred to Hermione that Narcissa hadn't used a house-elf for the simple fetch and pour task and she wondered why…

"She left to breath," Harry said.

Hermione nodded, "What is that? What have you been doing here?"

Harry left his place at her side to trail fingertips along the spines of several books stacked upon the coffee table at the center of the cozy space. Some of them trembled, twitching between their more lifeless counterparts, "I saturated the house."

"With your magic?"

"Oh yes," Harry grunted as he eased his bulk onto the couch and motioned her over.

"Why would you do something like that?"

"Curious, are you? It's something you'll have to do."

"Oh?"

He waited until she was beside him, attentive and interested.

"They need this, a Lord, a Lady, someone to control them."

"Like dogs," Hermione said, suddenly reminded acutely of the conversation at the Weasley household.

"Like sophisticated beasts, I think. They're used to following order, a Head. Malfoy - Lucius, that is - is dead. Sirius is dead. Draco and Narcissa are my responsibility. With my magic dominating the space, it in turn makes them feel…"

"Smaller. Vulnerable." Hermione answered.

"Yes, and I suspect protected to. Still, it's easier to condition someone to obedience when they constantly feel the weight of your rule. I think that's why… He lived here. Much easier to control the wayward and crazed when they cannot escape the influence of your magic. That's certainly how the lords of olde kept their courts in line."

She nodded as understanding dawned within her mind, "And did you learn that from Lord Black?"

He chuckled then, something soft, " _Aunt_ Wally, actually. She was muttering behind the curtain, upset that Narcissa doesn't visit, let loose a few Black secrets in the meantime, and some interesting tidbits on how the last Black - her father, I suspect - kept them all in line. I considered making a smaller portrait for her, actually. I wonder if Narcissa would keep it."

"And Ms. Tonks?"

"It _is_ much healthier to be around living people, Hermione. And they are sisters, they should bond. Besides, Ms. Tonks loves me."

Hermione bobbed her head. Yes, of course.

"Madam Malfoy saved my life, twice if I'm honest. She also, by proxy, saved you and Ron. She'll go stir crazy here alone, even if Draco skulks about every so often. Lucius died for his sins, he freed Draco in doing so, I'm trying to keep them both alive long enough to see a far better reality."

For a moment they sat in silence, Hermione digesting his words, Harry listening to the crackle and pop of the fireplace before them.

"How much does she know?"

Harry hummed softly, "Enough that I heard her calling me 'my lord' when I startled her the last visit. But, that might just be the taste of my magic. It is _everywhere_ , and probably a little subjugating. It's a much better method than whatever hooey the Ministry tries to do. Worthless rehabilitation, done all wrong. It's power they want, power that keeps them safe. Not gold or trinkets, and barely freedom, though that helps too. Either way, she'll be useful when it's time to spread particulars about your existence and what we plan to accomplish."

She closed her eyes, waiting for a sliver of doubt, a hint of rejection of the words Harry spoke or the idea that he had slowly begun to work on this family beyond her knowledge. She idly prodded her memories, shivered under the phantom weight of the woman that had carved into her flesh in one of the many numerous manor rooms and…

And couldn't find the sense of disgust and rage she should have felt. There was only the idle hum of excitement and _magic_ in her blood, in the idea of something _else_.

"I want her," Hermione said, tasting the words on her tongue.

"Good," Harry whispered, "because as the leader of our little group you'll need to replace my magic here."

"This is a lot of… raw potential saturated in the walls."

"You'll be here long enough to accomplish it. It's all very subconscious. They'll be calling you my Lady in no time."

"Ah, so that's what this all is."

Harry didn't bother glancing to the threshold, where Draco stood, leaned against the open doorway with a familiar sneer and an upturned nose. He was a pale thing, dressed in his fitted shirt, vest, and black slacks. His hair was longer, much longer, bound at the back of his neck in a manner so tame that it made Harry's look that much wilder in comparison.

"Potter, I thought I said you aren't to come by here and hover around Mother when I'm at work."

Harry stuck out his tongue, an action so childish she failed to repress a sharp bark of laughter at the juxtapose of it.

 _That_ certainly got his attention, and, as if seeing her for the first time he jerked back, "You brought Granger here?"

"That's Ms. Granger, Draco. Remember our manners."

But Draco seemed somewhat flabbergasted by her presence, "I thought you were going to get _Ginvera_ or something, not Granger."

Harry stood slowly, a careful and calculate manipulation of his bulk and, glancing briefly to his hands he said, "Is there an issue, Lord Malfoy, with my decision?"

Draco swallowed audibly, a _gulp_ that seemed to echo in the sudden silence. He cleared his throat and schooled his expression, one hand tight upon the grip of a cane carefully constructed in homage to Lucius own. Perhaps, despite Lucius wand having been a part of it, that was a Malfoy aspect, a family heirloom.

"N-no, of course not, Lord Potter, I'm just concerned with how… we will get the olde blood to follow. Penniless some of them may be, but desperate they are not."

"Do you believe that, truly? Oh, they are desperate. Desperate enough to follow a half-blood-"

"But not a mud-"

"Draco," Harry said, his voice soft but the implication was oh so _chilling_ , "what have I said about using that word."

Slowly Harry clasped his hands together, his gaze a steady reflection of _intensity_ , "I've asked you, time and time again, if you were _ready_ to be more than a slave of the Ministry. If you were ready for change and to reclaim the _prestige_ of your birthright. The prestige that your father shamed, the prestige that you were told you'd never wield again."

Harry made a soft sound then, some cruel hiss of laughter, "Or, maybe you enjoy working for the Magical Maintenance Department, toiling about in the garbage of those who claim to be your betters."

Draco held himself so tightly it looked painful. His hands were wrapped about the head of his cane knuckle-white, the snake unable to open its mouth and hiss with displeasure. Though something in Draco had gone terribly cold and still, and while his expression was blank with Slytherin apathy, his gaze was tumultuous, a shifting storm of humiliation and trembling fury. His throat flexed and his Adam's apple bobbed, but his lips did not open and his tongue did not move. Everything felt frozen, _stuck_ in a manner Hermione had yet to witness. Magic sparked between them, Harry's thick and oppression, Draco's burdened but strong - a hot whip across her flesh, a test of her own authority.

So, she gave him an answer, one silent but tempting, a curl of magic from her body that hissed of _need_ and bestiality. She let them _both_ feel it, the untapped geyser she'd become. The fountain of darkness that pooled low in her belly like so much fire only to beat against her skin, contained but _oozing_. She watched Draco's nostrils flare and she enjoyed the shadows that swam within widening eyes. There's a flicker of something, perplexity, concern, and she _knows_ he can feel it, the tempting flame, the starving _burn_ she represents, the _ideal_ of constant destruction - of devouring force - meant to sweep upon them eating and eating and _eating_.

And oh, oh, how hungry she was - for knowledge, for power, for blood and bone - while her skin grew flushed and her mentality began to twist. It pulled upon words that blurred into nothing, words she knew she'd read, words she knew she'd forgotten, words that had grown her ability and stretched her potential for growth until something behind her chest had grown sore and heavy. Her lips parted, her throat moved, and she cackled, wild and _ready_ -

But warmth that held an origin beyond her ribs invaded her senses, warmth that spilled in from the back of her neck - from the firm grip Harry kept there - and soothed the feral drum that beat beyond her heart. She took a deep breath, then another, but Harry only murmured a soft, "Keep it out."

Her magic, the magic that made Draco wheeze and his knees buckle.

"It's easy enough, isn't it? To dominate another?"

Easy wasn't the word Hermione would have used to describe what she was feeling, what she was _doing_. Addictive seemed close. It was as if she could touch Draco in a way far far too intimate and all at once damaging. His magic retreated from her own, casting off a sense of reluctance that made Hermione wonder if he felt it to, this idle pull.

"You'll have to tell me later," Harry mumbled, drawing his hand away from the back of her neck to rest casually across her shoulders, his placement now back upon the couch, though she didn't remember when he'd sat "You didn't tell me you'd been learning _that much_."

Granted, some portion of herself hadn't even known, to be fair.

Draco parted his lips, speaking behind a tight throat with a croak more befitting the desperate and dying, not the noble and pure, "H-how? How could someone like you feel like _that_?"

She licked her lips, hands flexing as Draco stepped past the threshold, his gaze far too wide and his chest heaving. "It's difficult to explain."

"Try," Draco said, breathless and trembling.

Harry gave her shoulder a heavy-handed slap, an act of mirth that triggered a flashing of teeth in his direction, "She's magic, that's how, and much more besides that."

"But it's impossible for her to feel…" Draco smacked his lips for a moment, searching for the words that slipped from his mentality, shifted aside by the pressure of her magic, "M-muggleborns don't have the capacity, their bodies… t-the core isn't able to generate such thick potential due to a lack of established magical saturation within the initial breeding."

"And who told you that?" Hermione drawled, "The Muggleborn Registry? The Dark Lord?"

Draco staggered to a halt, brow furrowed as he stood before them alone and bewildered on the other side of the table, "It was…" He struggled for a moment, but it was clear he didn't remember. Was it his father, that had spoken such poison? Dolohov? Yaxley?

"The Ministry, most likely. They still don't feel as if Muggleborns have the capacity, mentally or physically, for greater expressions of magic, the sort that a pure or even a halfblood could manage. When you show potential for such they begin to investigate the cause."

Hermione snorted and curled a finger, beckoning Draco closer. The boy, now man, jerked forward, practically crawling over the table until he spilled before her, on his knees, with an unfocused glassy gaze of budding admiration. His chest expanded, his breathing quickened, and she felt _otherworldly_ with his face held between her grasp and her power coiled about him.

Harry shifted until he was on the edge of his cushion, his fingertips lost among the locks of Draco's hair, "But I have little faith in the propaganda of the Ministry. They are ruled by their caste and the royalty they've stolen but refuse to share. The potential for magic has little to do with self-proclaimed blood and proper breeding, two wars could tell you that. The core is what matters, strengthened through _the will of the wilde_."

Draco shivered in her grasp, "The Olde Ones blessed _our_ lines to be _perfect_. Those of the pure and olde. Lady Magic herself -"

"-but who is to say Lady Magic does not bestow other blessings to the olde and faithful? That Her gifts aren't the reemergence of our slumbering lines? To solve the foolish infertility and fleeting magic of the pure?"

Draco sucked in a rattling breath, "R-rebirth? You mean to say core… bloodline reincarnation. It can't be true. They'd burn, you know, the wilde- _touched._ Muggleborns… the magic of our rituals devour them. The idea of _puri_ fication through ancient service… has been long tossed aside for centuries and even talks of it has been heralded as gibberish, especially by Dumbledore-"

Hermione sighed softly, enjoying the feel of Draco's smooth skin - and submission - between her hands and the way his magic bowed to her own. "What do you mean?"

"Wizards do everything in riddles and fables, especially the olde bloods-"

Despite the way Draco leaned against her legs and rested his hands - somewhat tentatively - upon her knees in subservience, he still snorted cheekily, "It's not that difficult to understand-"

"Then tell me," Hermione whispered as she watched Draco's pupils shift and shrink, his entire being stimulated by her presence.

"We were forsaken, once upon a time. The Muggles used our magic, our secrets, and our ambitions to fuel their own. Then, we were slaughtered, consumed by the fires of their petty paranoia, metaphorically and literally." Though Draco was held in her thrall he snarled, giving her the perfect view of straight and shiny teeth, "They took a great deal. Our status, our wealth, our land - and the power held there. But they also took our olde, those who were _first_ , our strongest witches, our most determined wizards, burned by greed during our vulnerability."

Hermione nodded knowing that this was the core of pureblood ideology, that Muggles would wrought their destruction and hoard their gold forevermore. Their exposure was their greatest fear. That the Muggleborns would cause the erasure of their magic and might even more so.

"The Olde Ones began to die, our magic began to weaken, and we hid like rats among the filth." Draco spat, "But Lady Magic, though She slumbers, never left. She gave us our power, our growth, and blessed our lines-"

"But it is not a story told often, is it?" Harry interrupted, his tone a soft whisper.

"No," Draco sneered, "The Olde Ways and the stories that accompany them are not always remembered. Our culture has been… diluted. Dumbledore saw to that."

Hermione closed her eyes and ignored the twisted boil of chilled fury that swam in the depths of Draco's gaze. "The Muggleborn-"

"Do not worship despite the gift of their magic," Draco interrupted, "so we are all cursed. With squibs and sickness, with madness and Her rage. _They_ remain weak and we grow _weaker_. And now, _now_ the Ministry refuses to acknowledge that _they_ have made our numbers so much _worse_ through their systematic crazed slaughter and suppression."

There was silence for a moment, a silence only interrupted by Harry's rolling purr - "But what if that could be changed?"

Hermione opened her eyes in time to watch Draco draw back and away from her, his brow furrowed, "You keep claiming it's possible."

"And it is, you can feel it, can't you?"

Draco refused to meet her gaze, his eyes pointedly focused on the tops of Harry's polished shoes, "One suspiciously powerful Muggleborn, especially in our current political climate, means nothing."

"It means _everything_ ," Harry replied, his hand curled around her shoulder now gently caressing the side of the Turner about her neck.

She moaned, surprised by the _ping_ that ebbed deep within her, by the fact that Harry felt so intertwined with her essence just by _touching_ that sacred part of her.

Draco's eyes grew far too wide, "S-she… y-you made one?"

"I told you, Draco, that I'd prove it," Harry smiled thinly, " _She_ made one, _she_ was able to do it-"

"She shouldn't have the capacity for such magic, the raw potential necessary for it alone - ! Only a handful of wizards have accomplished such actions, only… only He was able to do such a thing successfully in the many centuries of its reemergence."

"And yet," Harry said as he rubbed his thumb across the bottom of her Turner, drawing a deep groan from her person, "Hermione has managed it."

Draco drew a shaky breath, "Then they were wrong-"

"-not entirely," Harry said, though his words only hovered at the edge of Hermione's perception. Only his hand, his _magic_ , mattered as it gently pushed against her separated shard, "Some _are_ more equal than others. Those are the touched lines, I think. The olde ones at least-"

"-and he stole them, for years?"

"-manipulated them, I think."

"And your mother? Was she-"

"It would be impossible to know, but I assume-"

"-shit!"

"Language," Hermione mumbled, lifting a hand to remove Harry's distracting one, "and you're both talking about me, around me. Rude."

"We'll be punished if we truly disregarded Her gifts-"

"-then make it up to Her and take care of this one," Harry said, though his eyes were no longer on the kneeling Draco, pale and grimaced. It was on the threshold of the library, where an equally pale Narcissa stood with wine bottle and glasses in hand and one smiling Ronald Weasley at her side.

"Talking philosophy without me? That's-whoa…" Ron stumbled slightly as he crossed the threshold, his throat bobbing.

From one breath to the next Hermione drew her magic, calling the essence back to her flesh despite the odd discomfort she felt for doing so. Suppressing it, denying it… it seemed so _wrong_.

But Ron was functional, and all to soon he was stalking toward the couch with briefcase in hand and tie undone, brow furrowed but amused as he flicked his wand at a nearby armchair and floated it over to the table proper.

"You'll have to excuse me for not kneeling on the floor," he drawled.

That and Narcissa's 'tch' was enough to make a flushed Draco stand quickly. With his head held high he ignored Ron's snigger and instead moved to his mother with a shaky grip to take the wine and glasses.

"Will you be needing anything else?"

"No, Mother," Draco said - and it was difficult to deny the affection he held for her in just those two words, especially as he leaned down to kiss her cheek, now so much taller, "I can take all this."

She drew a soft breath but nodded, "Good. Dinner will be served shortly. Try not to… kneel in front of anymore women this evening."

Now Ron laughed, some glorious sound at Draco's expense as he grumbled and walked stiff-backed in their direction.

So, if Draco was a bit sloppy with pouring their wine into their glasses, Hermione couldn't blame him.

"Open the case, Harry," Ron leaned back, one leg crossed over the other, expression relaxed, "I've got some good news for you."

Harry set his glass to the side and leaned over, unclasping the clips that had once sealed the case closed.

"And also some bad news," Ron chirped, but his expression never changed from playfully amused.

Harry, on the other hand, only frowned, "Bad news?"

While Hermione sucked on the side of her fingers, licking up the wine that Draco had purposely spilt over her hand when he'd poured, Harry began to empty the case of its contents, his expression pensive if a bit curious.

"This was your plan?"

"It's good, isn't it? I told you, I'm a master tactician."

"So, you were reading them then? The grimoires?" Harry said, though he was somewhat distracted by Draco's smooth transformation of a nearby globe into another chair.

"I think it holds some merit, but the weight of it will be determined by…" Ron cast a quick glance to Draco, who collapsed heavily into his chair with a scowl befitting his father.

"What is it? Don't look at me, I hate your face and your freckles and your uncombed hair."

Ron stuck out his lower lip for a moment, a mockery of hurt, "Ouch."

Hermione shook her head, more interested in the carefully organized papers Harry began to comb over than the building pressure of magic before her.

"And you're slimy-"

"-I showered this morning, I'll have you know-"

"-and you smell," here Draco inhaled deeply, "poor."

Ron looked just about ready to leap out of his chair but a hand upon his knee - Harry's - gave him pause.

Silence sat between them then, heavy as Harry sucked in a breath between his teeth. When he found cause to break it, it was with a softly uttered, "Is this true?"

"They think so. It was Dad who planted the idea. 'I think she's always been special', he said."

"And they believe it?" Harry muttered, shifting one page to the next.

"Most of them do, those left from…"

Draco made an irritated sound of annoyance, "The Circle? They believe what?"

"Still don't let you go to court, do they?"

"If I were able I'd know all of this by now, wouldn't I?" Draco snapped, his brow lifted.

"You'll attend soon enough," Harry said, distracted as he handed Hermione one of the pages, the page with her name upon it in bright blocky ink with a stamp in the corner that looked awfully official.

"What is this?"

Ron looked incredibly smug, "A reevaluation of your line, a report of sorts. You are suspected of above average performance metrics for someone of registered Muggleborn status. An investigation of your ability, based on Hogwarts tenure and war action, was started four months ago-"

Her grip tightened, the parchment crinkled, "So they _are_ investigating lines."

"They have generated metrics of magical potential, yes, but most of this was instigated by the Senior Undersecretary, Lady Umbridge. You have been… _were_ charged with theft and possible inflation of magical ability."

Her heart rattled in her chest, set to the beat of a simmering hatred that snapped at her belly and made her entire being _ache_ with a sudden ferocity. She sucked in a sharp breath, a poor attempt at hiding the intensity of her emotion, at containing the _need_ that shook her with an unhinged sort of aggression.

"You've been cleared, of course," Ron was quick to say, just as she'd begun to gnaw on her bottom lip with flared nostrils and heaving chest, "and she's mighty pissed about that."

Draco looked between them, but didn't dare comment on her mood, on the seething magic that caused her hair to frizz, "That's good, then? Never liked that cow, but…"

One breath, then another, and the anger was bottled, pushed back behind the rattle of her heart and swallowed. There would be time, more than enough time, to seethe. The paper-

"Well," Ron grinned, youthful and cheeky, "she was cleared because they suspect she might be… something else."

"Creature blood?" Draco chirped, but his insult was half-hearted at best. By the fervent look in his gaze and the sudden eagerness of his tone, she knew he had other ideas.

"Pureblood, you git," Ron hissed.

Draco stared at her for a moment, before his gaze was drawn to Harry, a silver storm of awe, "Rebirth then? Is it really rebirth?"

Harry tilted his wine glass in a manner far to sly while Hermione drew her fingertips down the rearranged structure of her assumed bloodline. She felt _off_ in a way she couldn't describe. Eager that their plan would now move forward, pushed in the proper orchestrated direction all due to pureblood mythos and Ministry bigotry… and yet, as the magic sung through her veins, didn't that make some of it all very real?

"Dagworth-Granger, they figure Mr. Granger is a squib or born from one within his line, not a lot of blokes with the last name Granger-"

"That line has been dead for _centuries_ -"

"And suppose Lady Magic returned them to us?" Harry muttered.

Draco snapped his mouth shut with a squeak.

"Mr. Granger has exhibited some signs of squibhood in the past. He can… _see_ certain magical aspects that Muggles aren't normally able to comprehend. This was shown during his visit to Diagon Alley, oh so many years ago."

"Like runes. He could feel them too, always said something about soft voices," Hermione whispered as she set the paper down, "But Mother was able to see those too, what does that prove?"

"Everything. Nothing," Ron was delightfully cryptic.

"For now, it proves that Mr. Granger, in the eyes of the Ministry, is a squib. We will be unable to confirm or deny it, due to their… status."

Missing, with no memory, too far beyond Hermione's grasp.

"They have also assumed that Mrs. Granger is a squib-"

"-So, they can continue to suppress and disregard the ability of halfbloods-" Harry said.

"Yes. Exactly," Ron said. "Praise be the Empire."

"And her line…?"

Slowly Ron leaned forward, lips twisted in a smile _almost_ unkind as he displayed teeth a little to sharp and eyes a little too wide. "Why 'Moine, dear ol' Dad was a huge help there. He gave them the most fabulous assumptions and they ate it all up."

She licked her lips and felt the thump of her heart against a tight chest, "Oh did he?"

"It was genius, _my genius_ , that did it, you know. It's in the features. The _beauty_ -"

"Why Ronald, you think I'm beautiful?"

"Otherworldly," Ron hissed, gaze predatory in playful manner, "the hair, the passion, the _wildness_ -"

And it was there, in everything he _wouldn't_ say, in the careful manipulation of their company, in the flare of his nostrils and the glassiness of his gaze. The answer, the sway that had nothing to do with her power and yet _everything_ to do with the influence they wished to snatch and the chains they would turn upon their masters.

"I just so happened to be in the room, you know, visiting and all that, when they demanded that investigation. And I, clever boy that I am, happened to also be in the room when they were speculating the lines and 'Moine, you won't believe who they think you are - what they think you are."

She held her breath and felt more than heard Harry's crazed laughter beside her. Draco seemed to _shine_ with a sudden understanding and he sat up straighter, his smile beholden of all the hope he'd placed in Harry - of the hope they'd _all_ placed in Harry - for a grand future.

"What is it then? That they think I am?"

"Why, Hermione, dear. They think you're a Black."

* * *

This is a side project story, just something to get out of my head. I write other fiction too, and you can learn or talk about it on my Discord Server, where I'll give updates and chill around with the gang. Discord code: bxhZ9cr


	3. Chapter 3

Narcissa was late to dinner, an absent face among an elaborate table placed for seven but only catering to five. Her chair, nestled beside Draco's own, seemed hauntingly empty, as if a vacuum existed where flesh and magic should. An effect magnified by their seating arrangements with Harry at the head as Lord Black, and Hermione and Ron across from Draco and the yet-to-appear Madam Malfoy.

"This is all so unnecessary," Hermione said as her fingers explored the decorative tablecloth of white and the shiny plates before her space, "We could take supper in the library."

"Mother is a traditionalist," Draco grunted, his mind on the absence of said mother, not on Hermione's whining. "Supper at the table, as a family, is very important to her."

"So important that she isn't here for it?" Hermione drawled.

There's a twitch of muscle in Draco's neck, "She must have been held up, Granger. I'm sure she'll arrive soon, perhaps with more wine? Since you've… consumed the table bottle."

"And who could blame her? It's all a bit much to take, isn't it?" Ron said smugly, drumming fingertips across the arm of his wooden - and horridly uncomfortable, Hermione admitted - chair.

"Being a Dagworth… being a _Black_ will open a great amount of opportunity, Granger-"

"And I'm aware, Malfoy," Hermione whispered, her mind elsewhere, her heart _still_ thudding despite the wine she'd consumed, "but I'm allowed to be overwhelmed."

Because it was so much more than that. So much more than the disturbing lack of guilt in the idea of fattening her prestige, her heritage, through the sacrifice of missing parents. So much more than the idea that she was now another cog in the machine of the supposed gentry - still chained by the Ministry, and yet blessed with new freedoms. It was in the howling _wail_ that clawed at her mentality. In the urge to _laugh_ that knocked upon her chest, pushing at her throat. The thought that she was, in any way, connected to _her_ , the woman who haunted her existence, even after being bound so _tightly_ -

Well, that was overwhelming.

"Are you fine with it?" Harry asked, his tone a careful mixture of introspective and concerned, "You will have holdings to account for, Dagworth is sure to have a great deal of untouched wealth, but as a Black you would become-"

"- Heir presumptive to your estate, correct?"

"Which is massive in its own right, and much older to boot."

"But tied up in the Ministry," Hermione cautioned, her mind an immaculate record of Harry's golden-spine account books.

"A vault or two, for a rediscovered heir, would be no issue for the Ministry surely, as an act of good will toward their precious Trio." Harry smiled.

And Hermione mirrored it, even if her mind was far from her upcoming wealth, and more on the impact of her supposed 'discovery'.

"Will they announce?" Harry shifted his attention, placed it upon a fiddling Ron who'd begun to obnoxiously clack his fork against the edge of his empty plate.

"I suspect," he grunted, "they'll toy around with the idea of it. An official announcement, an interview with the press, that could very well be in the future. But, a new Black? A reestablished Dagworth? That's the sort of news that shakes foundations."

The sort of news the Ministry might want to control.

"The Circle," Draco croaked then, "they need to know. First if possible. Everything... everything hinges on this one event."

They looked at her then, expectant and eager, because she was the planner, the logic, the brains. Whether her heart rattled in her chest and her blood _hummed_ with something _other_ was irrelevant. The ball was moving much faster than expected but not beyond their control.

 _Her_ control.

"What is my upcoming title," Hermione said, best to start there.

"Lady Dagworth-Granger Black," Harry offered, "Heir Presumptive - no, perhaps Apparent - to the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black."

"And what if you have a child? What of Draco? Lady Malfoy?"

"I doubt I shall," Harry pondered, "but the title would not be changed, the Potter estate would need a heir first, as the Peverell bloodline takes precedence over the other. There are contracts to be sure of it. As for Draco-"

"My claim to lordship is not stronger than your own, I am Lord Malfoy first and foremost, under the Black House umbrella of control, through blood of my mother." Draco said, his gaze upon the door, his thoughts still upon said missing mother, "I am Potter's vassal, but not his replacement."

"So, my security is stable, through right of magic and blood?" She needed to be sure, that her reign would be absolute, that her political power would be indisputable in this one aspect.

"So mote it be," Harry said, with an undeniable firmness.

"And the Ministry cannot overturn that decision?"

"The Rites of Olde would not allow it, and such is governed by Gringotts, and we know how much they despise the Ministry."

"And should this all be wrong? If I am not a Black or a Dagworth-"

"Impossible," Ron interrupted. It was enough to bring her leveled gaze to him, narrowed with mild disbelief.

"How so?"

Draco snorted, "Do you remember studying the theory of _to be?_ "

She leaned back in her chair, head tilted, "The study of reality and the potential of magic within it. If I believe I exist and if others believe I exist, then I exist, bound in place by magic. And yet-"

"-if I transfigure a desk into a pig, and I believe the desk is a pig, that doesn't truly make it a pig."

Hermione nodded, no novice when it came to transfigurative theory.

"But," Draco held up a finger, his lips pressed into a thin smile, "if Harry believes, that gives weight to the magic holding the shape of the desk into a pig-"

"-for a brief period of time, at most." Hermione huffed.

"But what is the difference between the desk-pig and yourself?"

"I'm _real_ ," she hissed, hands knuckle-white upon the arm of her chair as she pushed aside memories of screeching at dark ceilings, Dementors, and her complete absolute loss of time and self, "I firmly and absolutely believe that I'm real-"

"-and I believe that you are real, and Harry believes that you are real, Ron and so forth. The Ministry. My mother-"'

"I get it. And so, magic grounds me in reality. Fueled on the ideals and firm belief of a thousand or so others, is that it?"

"And that is anchoring. Making it truth. Making it _to be_."

"So," Harry softly uttered, "if I believe… and Ron believes…"

"And Mum and Dad believe," Ron supplied.

"-And the Circle believes, and the Ministry believes, and the whole of magical Great Britain believes…"

"Then I will _become_." She shivered.

Harry's twist of upper lip seemed _wicked_ against the backdrop of their educational conversation. It was as if they had moved away from simple theory and had slipped into something much darker than intended.

"The Dark Lord was a very powerful man," Draco whispered then, a soft utterance she almost missed against the backdrop of her own rushing blood, "Most believed him a god."

"So, he nearly _became_ a god." Harry said, "Blessed by magic, fueled by the people… but he burned. He burned and he burned until there was very little left to keep him grounded, stable."

"Sane," Hermione swallowed.

"Absolute power corrupts absolutely, and all that." Ron chirped, "But we're better prepared. Smarter. More ambitious-"

"You? More ambitious than a _Slytherin?_ The _Heir of_ Slytherin?" Draco interrupted.

Ron rubbed the back of his neck, "I can be ambitious too, you know."

Hermione didn't have the patience to sit through another squabble, "So what does this mean?"

"The Ministry will attempt to keep silent for as long as possible. With the case wrapping up and closing quietly, they may be reluctant to seek absolute proof of their affirmations. One can never be sure of the public's reaction to a near scandal. The last heir of Dagworth, unceremoniously rushed to prison for the betterment of _society_ and yet still without a trial? That doesn't look good for the Ministry. So, they'd rather function on speculation. This has given us the advantage. Draco will meet with his friends, Narcissa will groom you, you will adhere to the Olde Ways and the people will wonder." Harry said. "So, we will give them fuel to feed their ideals and they will presume your birthright of royalty. Then their _belief_ in your purity, in your bloodline, will _become_. Your power will be solidified, our control absolute."

Here Draco swallowed nervously, "And the vaults?"

"All that and so much more, Draco. Security. Respect. _Revenge_ -"

"My mother-" Draco croaked, throat tight.

"Will not become a tool for the Ministry to threaten." Harry drawled, and despite the casual canter to his tone the green of his gaze seemed so much _darker_ then. "They have used me, they have stolen from me, from the people, for little more than their own security."

"Built on the bodies of others." Ron finished.

Something tight in Draco relaxed and he nodded, soothed, "Then I'll deal with the Circle and those of olde who are starving on their regrets."

"Praise be the Sacred," Ron sniggered, just a tad _cruel_ , "their royalty will be returned."

Hermione stared at her empty glass and wished she could toast to that.

"When Mother arrives, we can ask her to investigate the assume Dagworth fortune and those that came before him. You know, in terms of magical genealogy it was rumored that Dagworth was related to Salazar Slytherin, a possible descendant from the Irish branch of the now defunct Gaunt family. A much stronger claim than Umbridge to the line, though no one has stepped up to deny her. So, it would be interesting if-"

But Draco's words were cut short, abruptly silenced as Narcissa swept into the room with… _company._

"I apologize for the wait," Narcissa said, her tone carefully devoid of emotion, her gaze steady with a practiced sort of emptiness. It was enough to draw Hermione's attention to the stiff-backed woman, who held herself with an unashamed amount of nobility. A mask wielded more like a sword. "I was held up by our guest-"

"Aha," the guest interrupted, "Auror Potter, I wasn't aware you were here!"

That guest turned out to be one John Dawlish, who looked somewhat heavier in the time Hermione had seen him. His uniform did little to hide a rounder older form and she had to wonder how much hair was left beneath the black bowler hat upon his head. Still, it meant very little, considering the man was standing in the dining space with his wand palmed and a sheepish smile upon his face. A threat, no matter how fat on Ministry gold he'd gotten.

"Auror Dawlish," Harry greeted, standing from his chair to meet the other man, "Or, should I say, Head Guard Dawlish? Congratulations are in order, I hear! The Pride of Ordinance has been officially commissioned!"

Hermione carefully filed that information away as Ron stood from his chair, motioning for Draco and herself to do the same.

"Yes, well, that is all true," the man smiled, flushed on the praise Harry delivered so effortlessly, "It was recently commissioned, just as we expected, but I'm afraid not for the reasons we all originally wanted, my boy."

Harry held careful control over his facial features, even though Hermione knew he despised being addressed by such a title. He wasn't anyone's boy, he never had been.

"Oh?" Ron slipped into the conversation, carefully maneuvering his bulk so that Narcissa looked less in the way of Dawlish carefully held wand and closer to Draco, whose expression had also become a mask of indifference. "What have you heard?"

The man in question seemed obvious to the careful manipulation of his space, even if he was a bit startled by Ron's presence. "I'm afraid I have some horrible news, just horrible."

"How frightening," Hermione said, finishing the wall of flesh that separated Dawlish from the Malfoys, "What's happened?"

The man blinked once, then again before he drew wide eyes to her, "Ms. Granger! You're here too? I…" For a moment he seemed baffled by their combined presence.

"Lord Malfoy and Madam Malfoy have opened their doors to Harry since he's become an important part of their family and their rehabilitation representative. They invited us all for dinner," Hermione answered pleasantly, hands linked at her front, the perfect image of demure and humbled, "It was awfully nice of them."

"Oh was it?" Dawlish grunted, his expression somewhat furrowed, his opinion on the Malfoys clear, "I didn't mean to… interrupt. It's just, my team and I-"

"Your team?" Harry said.

"They are… in the front gardens. I didn't want them in the estate disturbing you, Auror Potter."

Harry's soft hum was the only indication that he approved of Narcissa's decision, but it was clear his attention was focused fully on Dawlish and the fact that he had arrived with a _team_.

"Y-yes, well, you see Harry, the Minister had gone missing and-"

"And you came to look for him at Malfoy Manor?" Harry asked, his tone filled with boyish curiosity.

"W-well, we did find him."

"You did? At the Manor?"

"N-no, yes, well-"

Behind them Draco released an odd sound, a deep rolling curl of disgust that Dawlish caught with a downward twist of his lips.

"Harry, sometimes, when things like this happen, _they_ might have answers and-"

"You found the Minister," Harry interrupted, backtracking so rapidly that Dawlish lost his train of thought, "but not here. But, you came anyway... To ask questions?"

"Where _is_ the Minister, exactly?" Ron said, the perfect picture of ignorance.

"He's… ah… he's dead, boys."

Hermione gasped, lifting hands to cover her mouth in a display of horror, "Minister Thicknesse is dead?"

Dead and gone, thumping to the beat of her pulse against her chest, fueling her, _feeding her-_

"I'm afraid so, Ms. Granger." Dawlish turned eyes of sad grey in her direction, but Ron had shifted, moving to wrap his arms around Hermione to pull her close, to hide her face and calm her trembles - as a _twisted_ need shifted through her, a _thrill_ as she remembered, as she pulled on the memory of dulling eyes and so much _blood._

"There there," Ron croaked, rubbing soothing circles among her back, "it's awfully scary. Why did this happen? How did it happen?"

"Is it…" Harry said in lowered tone, "Is it because he freed us? Do you think the people rebelled?"

"Oh no! Heavens no, my boy!" Dawlish barked as he shook his head in rapid denial, "Everyone's been pretty pleased you've been freed! Seemed wrong to punish our heroes and all! Even if they'd said it was for your own good. No, it certainly wasn't that. But, we can't be sure of _why_ it was, you know, and sometimes it's just best to ask…"

Here his gaze shifted over Harry's shoulder to the woman and man behind them.

"But, Madam Malfoy and Lord Malfoy… surely, the Ministry doesn't think they had anything to do with it?"

Dawlish cleared his throat and lowered his voice, as if he could hide the venom of his words from the ears in the space, "Harry, sometimes their lot can be a bit sore about everything. You know how the last time, the second war, went. The Ministry is doing good things, _great_ things - Praise be the Empire - but they aren't that happy about it. Selfish as they are, those who supported You-Know-Who could be involved."

"How _dare_ you!" Narcissa _broke_ , her tone emboldened and certainly loud enough to make Hermione turn from Ron to face her as all that Slytherin breeding warped into something grotesque and _furious_ , "How dare you come here, to the home of my husband, who _died_ for this Empire, to accuse -"

"-But how are we to know?" Dawlish interrupted, "It was _also_ your husband who served You-Know-Who-"

"-The Dark Lord is dead! Everything that he stood for is _dead_ -"

"And why should something like _that_ would stop the lot of yah? Who else would be capable of killing so heartlessly? He was torn asunder, in pieces you know!"

Draco held balled fists at his side. His expression was flushed in his fury, his chest tight, his gaze a flickering twist of so many different emotions. Pain at being accused. Betrayal from the thoughts of those that governed them. Grief at the reminder of his father - tortured, dead, and gone. And _fear_ , so much fear. Terror for himself, for his mother, for the lack of freedom that bound them in exhaustion and paranoia.

"You could still be misguided, you could still be practicing all sorts of things you shouldn't be. They'd talked of rehabilitation, how _worthwhile_ it all was, but now look at what we have! Poor Pius killed in the most horrible of ways! He was too soft, I think! We'd all be safer if you lot were being _watched_ somewhere and-"

But that was enough. Something welled up within her, something hot and heavy, something that churned through her belly and slipped up her spine. She felt it coming, some need for action, words and an undeniable beating urge. She didn't bother pushing down the soft whispers that swept across her mentality or the motions that carried her away, away from Ron and closer to the twitching whip like tendrils of stress and magic and _familiarity._

It was only once she was in front of Narcissa that the conversation - vicious and meant to wound, in Dawlish case - seemed to cease. She lifted her hands and placed them upon the woman in question, drawing her palms down the length of trembling arms as she carefully reached out to _grasp_ the vibrant thing that made Narcissa _Narcissa._ The other witch, held firmly in grasp, grew tense in her grip but slowly closed her mouth, her attention and the intensity of her focus, all for Hermione.

Yes. Hermione liked that.

So, she wound her tighter, stealing away that stress and replacing it with the warmth of her ability, with the firm tight comfort of her _authority_.

"Quiet now," Hermione murmured, her voice almost loud in the deafening silence that covered them, "I don't think you've done anything wrong."

Draco trembled beside them, his anger present but leashed, held captive due to Hermione's sway, while Narcissa swallowed in a manner almost nervous, had it not been for the instinctive recollection of her self-control. "Yes, of course… I would… I would never purposely seek to harm the integrity of my family."

Harry made a sound of agreement, a ping upon her radar of focus, "Yes. It's a bit mean to accuse them, don't you think? The Ministry has put a lot of effort into the rehabilitation program, I'm sure the Malfoys haven't done anything untoward since their admittance."

"Yes. Of course. But Harry, you must realize it is still very possible -"

"Furthermore, the late Minister, may his journey to the Summerlands be pleasant, put his faith in me when the Malfoy House became ward of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black." While Harry's words were firm he never lost his smile, his careful _jolly_ expression of innocence and _far_ too much caring. "They helped Sir Thicknesse free us from suffering, murder seems like more of a… Death Eater thing."

For a moment Dawlish was quiet, red faced and sweat-slick, "And the late Malfoy… along with the current are -"

"- were. They _were_ Death Eaters, but Mr. Malfoy died for his sins, willingly, to free his son and wife from Azkaban based on a deal made with the Ministry, didn't he? While also confessing…?"

"To... to manipulating his son into service, yes."

Whether any of that was true was irrelevant. It was what the Ministry had fed the masses, and so it was meant to be.

"Seems like a huge waste of time, don't it, Dawlish?" Ron said, hands upon his hips, "The Malfoys have their own pains to deal with and all those donations to those Ministry organized charities should say _something_ , shouldn't it? Besides, Harry takes his job as their rehabilitation officer pretty seriously. He'd be the first to know if something odd were afoot. Starting an investigation here seems a bit… foolish."

Hermione only smiled slightly, her back still turned to the Auror in question, her gaze still upon Narcissa whose eyes was wide and shaken, steady upon the Turner about her neck.

"I… see. W-well, I am sorry for causing such a fuss. Awfully rude of me."

"Yes," Draco sneered, "It was. Supper will be cold by the time the elves serve it, thanks to you."

"Be nice," Harry laughed, a sea of calm in a storm of tension. "Auror Dawlish was just doing his job, I'm sure."

"Yes," His smile was strained, "I was."

"Then, I take it you've asked enough questions? You have to prepare to appoint a temporary Minister, and maybe, with the Pride of Ordinance, this one will… stay alive?"

With a hasty swallow Dawlish nodded, "They've already got one in mind. They voted 'em in this morning, so you are quite right, Harry, I best get going. We've a few more… places of interest to check for anything out of the ordinary before we convene for the night."

Harry nodded, 'tsking' in false sympathy as he began to lead Dawlish to the door, the other Auror's mumbles of 'you really should be careful with that sort' echoing back to them down the hall.

It was only then, once Harry and Dawlish had vanished, that Hermione laughed softly, a sound that ebbed from her chest like gravel underfoot.

"Bloody idiot," Draco hissed, but she could tell he was anxious.

Narcissa had gone incredibly still, her face slack, her mind…

"It's uh, it's okay. Thank you, you helped." Draco whispered then, carefully moving to uncurl Hermione's hands from around the arms of his mother, "It's the stress. She doesn't sleep much, and this happens so often. And… and Azkaban hasn't done her… either of us, really, any favors with our… well, you know."

Neither of them looked like they slept much, in Hermione's opinion, but she still relinquished her hold on the woman, slowly drawing the curl of her magic back into herself as Ron huffed at her back.

"How often does that happen exactly?" She said.

"Too often," Ron grunted, "I try to get 'em, the check-ins. Otherwise, it can get nasty."

While Draco carefully maneuvered his mother to a nearby chair Hermione glanced over her shoulder, "Was that the bad news you had?"

"Oh, nah, not that." Ron mumbled, suddenly restless, "We knew they'd find the body and all-"

Draco went stiff, but otherwise made no indication that he was listening as he patted his mother's hand and began to summon an elf to start their dinner.

"Then what is it?" Harry said, slipping back into the room with nose turned up, as if he had just dealt with the stench of trash - which wasn't far from the truth, "You never told us."

"Yeah, about that…" Ron grunted, "He wasn't kiddin' when he said they already picked the temp. What he didn't tell you was that there won't be an election, whether Kingsley wanted to run this season or not."

"And the bad news is the temp for the position, I take it?" Hermione snorted.

"Oh yeah," Ron smirked, "that and the decree they'll announce once they publicly accept it."

Now Harry frowned, his gaze flat, hard, _livid_ , "A new decree, is it?"

"Oh yes, from the newly Elevated and Esteemed Minister Umbridge herself."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Supper was loud. Very loud. Filled with all the obnoxious Quidditch and political talk Hermione once despised at school. It was impressive how well the men around her were able to switch topics. One moment they were talking about Ginerva's ability for play being hampered by a lack of emotional range due to her prison tenure, then the next they were screeching about the lack of qualifications the newly risen Minister of Magic held to maintain their position. The whirlwind discussions were distracting and more than a little rambunctious, but her attention was captured elsewhere, settled somewhere in her belly where constant hunger warred with stirring madness.

Umbridge's elevation, while worrisome, was expected. She'd been Undersecretary for sometime, worming her way through political trenches until she was far too deep to dislodge. Her actions, wide and far reaching, had been praised as new-aged. It was progressive oppression, warped and barely adjusted to fit the Ministry's false ideal of equality and perseverance. Hermione supposed that placing half the population of Great Britain in camps for the Dark Lord was not an offense to those in power, especially when one claimed they'd been bamboozled into doing so. The people, bless their ability to forgive, had been more than willing to accept the Prophet spread excuse.

Just as easily as they'd been ready to accept her imprisonment.

So, it was no wonder that Umbridge had been picked for leadership. Interviews claimed she'd been humbled by her experiences, wise for surviving the Dark Lord's reign, and terribly brilliant for her innovative ideas when it came to the evaluation and reassessment of their now, so desperately loved and needed, Muggleborn brethren. They, those of the approved gentry, would no doubt back their new Minister with all the galleons they could afford to steal. After all, a campaign of control was an expensive venture to fund, in Hermione's experience.

"Think she'll want an interview with us?" Ron garbled, speaking around a mouth full of roast. "They usually do. Makes 'em look good 'n merciful. Pius loved it."

"With a beast? A literal filthy and starving animal? No, Weasley, I doubt the Minister will." Draco drawled, his lips pressed downward in a harsh cringe that Hermione might have echoed had she not been so used to Ron's ghastly habits and sense of self.

But she paid them very little attention and focused instead on the compartmentalization of the Umbridge announcement and all the _nasty_ little feelings that accompanied it. In went her boiling sense of _loathing_ , slick and slimy, along with a gnawing rolling resentment in exchange for the logical sweep of calm rationalization always granted her. There would be plenty of time later for fury.

One breath.

Then another.

And she slipped off her shoes, sensible and flat, to instead tentatively brush her toes against the ankle of a quietly eating - and rather apathetic - Narcissa.

The slow blink the other witch gave her, followed by pinched brow and the slight tap of her fork against her empty plate, was rather amusing. But it was the warmth of the other woman that Hermione wished to _devour._ Even now, as she sought to hook her heel around the back of Narcissa ankle, she felt some wicked sense… some need to control. Certainly, playing footsie with the witch would not accomplish that but she enjoyed the flicker of bewilderment inhabiting a once cool and closed off gaze.

"Hm," Hermione hummed as she fiddled with the shoe upon the foot she'd captured with her own wiggling toes.

Narcissa wrinkled her nose, leg twitching in a counter to an action she probably found more annoying than playful, "Is this the sort of behavior one can expect from the heir of my ancient house?"

Hermione's brows rose quite high, "You know of my blood?"

But it wasn't enough to stop her under table behavior. She was rather pleased when she was able to utilize both her own feet to pop one of Narcissa's lovely heels off, it's clack against the marble floor enough to make the other witch frown.

But she didn't attempt to stop the intimate and _oddly_ possessive playing below them, "I am aware of the speculation, yes."

Because she _was_ Madam of the house and the walls would not hold secrets from her, corrupted or not.

But Hermione figured it was something more than that, something that went beyond the flickering gold that inhabited the wards upon the ceiling or the hum of magic Narcissa wore like a mantle. It was in the careful shift of her gaze, in the lowering of her lids as she placed her attention upon Hermione's arm with such intensity that her skin prickled and tingled.

 _Completely_ aware of the focus it received.

She took a deep breath, ignored the slap of Draco's palm upon the table as he hissed something _foul_ toward Ron, words that made Harry guffaw with abandon and Ron shake the table with a savage motion. It was all just _noise_ , irrelevant and ignorable as that sense of _otherness_ settled heavy and hot right behind her stuttering heart -

But then Narcissa blinked and Hermione remembered to breath -

"I…" Narcissa whispered, lost for words.

Hermione smiled, something… lopsidedand eager, "Harry would like you to take care of me. There's much I need to know if I wish to be a… proper heir to _our_ ancient family."

And there was only so much she could learn in dreams, in the whispers of magic, and the heat of her scar.

"I will," she whispered, tone so soft Hermione had to strain to hear her over the others at the table, "once you stop rubbing your… feet against me."

And suddenly, as if sensing a great offense, Draco's attention was upon her. "What are you doing - what are you _rubbing_ against my mother?"

She made a soft sound of displeasure at Draco's tone - and the interruption - but Harry cleared his throat soon after, a sign that it was time to move forward. Reluctantly, she released the leg she'd captured.

"Ronald," Harry said, hands linked before him, the plates vanished, the food gone, "This decree?"

He blinked once, twice, and then bobbed his head as if the entire reason they'd converged upon the manor in the first place had once been forgotten. With a grunt he pulled a crumpled piece of parchment from his vest pocket, pausing upon its reveal only to place the parchment upon the table between them as he sought to smooth it out. For a moment, Hermione wondered at the casual ease in which Ron carried such important information, but who would think them - any of them - suspicious enough to pilfer Ministry secrets?

They were well-fed pets, after all.

"This is it?" Draco drawled, unimpressed, "Important information wrinkled in your front pocket?"

Ron gave off an odd sound, indignant, "It's no easy job copying sealed records, you fluffy codger."

Draco's nostrils flared but one tap of Harry's hand against the table kept him silent.

In fact, for a time, they were all silent, contemplative of the scribbled words Ron had hastily stolen.

Finally, Harry spoke, "Where did you see this? Hear of it?"

"Prophet," Ron croaked, "Some willowy thing came in to get a preliminary photo. Dad called me in after Pius discovery, you know. Said the Ministry wanted one of us there, show our support, grieve a bit. Easy stuff."

Hermione swallowed a bark of laughter. Easy indeed.

He continued, "Got a few candid photos of Umbridge, none of them all that flattering, but afterwards…" Here Ron paused, thoughtful, "they started talking. Mostly nonsense, this and that, but the girl… she asked Umbridge what she planned on doing first, how would they catch Pius killer, that sort of stuff."

Ron tapped the parchment, his gaze half-lidded, his tone somewhat amused, "'n she avoided the question, of course. I figure they won't really look, just shift the blame, it's what they do. But then she says… there's a population issue. She knows that. I know that. Too much blood in the streets instead of in bodies. So, she came up with this, this right here." He crumpled the paper slightly, his fist set to tremble as he repressed the urge to grasp and squeeze and tear, "but I have a feeling this isn't the first time they talked of it."

Silence reigned after that, heavy and suffocating, and Hermione closed her eyes, oddly at peace, soothed by the presence of company despite the worry that furrowed their brows.

"We prepared for this," Ron wheezed, uneasy with the idea of their silence, "it isn't anything we can't handle."

"But," Harry began, cautious, "I hadn't expected them to move so quickly. Pius body is barely cold."

At that Hermione did laugh, a wild haunted cackle that ripped from her chest and hunched her shoulders. Across from her, though she couldn't see it, she could _feel_ Draco stir - a jerk in his seating - while Narcissa took an audible breath.

Ron set his other hand upon her, let the comforting warmth and weight of his presence settle on her thigh, "It's always been, apparently, Umbridge said as much. They can call upon it whenever they feel the need, in any state of emergency - "

"And this is an emergency?"

"They've isolated too many of them, those who actually _care_ , so - "

Harry made a sound of confirmation, but it was Narcissa who spoke.

"This is not unusual, a decree of this sort. We, the olde, have been doing this for centuries. It's a ritual, meant to keep our gold and magic - "

"But then it was done for blood," Harry interrupted, "do you deny that?"

She swallowed harshly, "I do not."

"And this time, it will be done to control. It is our duty to fix their mistakes, they will say, as they tighten their chains and rattle our bonds -"

"Unless," Narcissa interrupted, raising a hand. "Unless… we craft our own chains."

Hermione opened her eyes then, curious, as she swept them across pinched expressions, "Who does this impact?"

Glances were exchanged briefly at the table, but it was Draco who addressed her, "Everyone, everyone who was sentence to Azkaban for war crimes but released thereafter will be impacted. Not all at once, but it will trickle down, starting with - "

"- me," Hermione confirmed, "because I am newly established and without true responsibility. Harry is a Lord and beyond immediate ordering, only pressuring and Ron is one of many children - the eldest will be bothered before he can be. Is that it?"

"And it is your ultimate responsibility," Narcissa murmured, hands twisting up a napkin in a manner that was unfairly graceful, despite the act of it, "due to the need to repopulate the Dagworth line and reestablish once-lost vaults."

Ron snorted then, one shoulder lifted in a listless shrug, "And Umbridge never liked you much, either."

Which made it much more challenging.

"They will pick for you, who I do not know, but their best choice would be someone that could control you and the estates you may claim in the future, if you dare to claim in the future. Or, someone still in Azkaban, someone worth galleons and land that can be married off and then controlled by you - who the Ministry, in turn, will try to control by your proxy." Narcissa said. "Unless you do not allow them the time to pick, making a preemptive strike imperative. Pick the target, then influence the Ministry decision from there until they believe they've made the choice themselves."

"They have a few candidates already, wouldn't be surprised if they denied anyone not of this bunch," Ron started, rummaging about his pockets for more things he'd no doubt pilfered from some bureaucratic office. "Not all of them male, surprisingly."

"There are other ways, Ronald." Hermione fussed, "Ways beyond cock-"

"Language," Narcissa grunted, shifting a leg to kick - _actually kick_ \- her ankle.

The rolling growl that swept from her chest was surprising even to her but Narcissa's response was only a slow lick of her bottom lip. How cheeky for a _proper_ witch.

Ron converted a snigger into a cough before sliding a folder out of his undetectable extended pocket and with a casual twist of wrist the folder opened, spilling several moving photographs onto the table. "The goal of the decree is to match powerful and fertile witches and wizards with one another to continue dying or almost extinct bloodlines."

"The Law of Marriage at its most basic core." Hermione said.

"Right," Ron chirped, "they want children to train. Tall-and-Willowy told her colleague that having one of us - and by us, I mean _you,_ 'Moine - as the poster witch for the process would force others to feel obligated to participate when their turn came around. After all, if the Golden Trio can do it…"

"So can the average wizard, yes." Hermione muttered, "More heroism."

Harry gave them a slow nod, "Of course, a sacrifice for the people."

"Their doctrine isn't it?" Draco grunted, his lips twisted in disgust at the proposed wizards in the photos from Ron's folder - "Flint? They think you should be with Flint?"

"Yaxley's in there too, you know. The idea that they'd release him early - "

Hermione sucked on her teeth for a moment, swallowing a dizzying sense of annoyance. "An insult, he's twice my age!"

"Easier to kill that way, ain't they?" Ron said, lips peeled back in a smile most unkind.

"Yaxley is… _was_ , a formidable wizard. His death would not be easy to orchestrate, no matter his age."

She sucked in a sharp breath at Narcissa's casual insertion into the conversation, even as Harry tittered with pleasure.

"How do you figure? We've been practicing you know!" He said.

"And while I'm sure Pius was the height of your accomplishments, he was lacking in various areas of prowess." Narcissa responded, a slender hand out to twist the folder around so that the photo's faced her. "It would be better to pair Hermione with a wizard," here she paused, if only to check for Hermione's reaction. "O _r_ witch that could aid her, not be fodder for your…" Here she paused, if only to toss a glance to the Turner around Hermione's neck, "hedonism."

Ron took a sharp breath beside her, and Hermione was somewhat surprised by the casual airs in which Narcissa discussed murder and magic. But it was to be expected, she was a woman of Black.

And the widow of a politician.

"What about this boy? Zabini, wasn't it?" Narcissa mused.

Beside her, Draco grew stiff and awkwardly cleared his throat.

"No?" She muttered, distracted as she examined the next photo, "He's a very cunning boy, handsome. His mother is gorgeous, might I add, so the children would be-"

It was easy for Hermione to smile during their casual conversation of who she would wed, despite the odd surrealistic nature of the conversation and the dooming implications it brought. Still, she let them speak around her, knowing that ultimately Harry would decide who was best - to bond with or destroy, should the union prove… inconvenient.

"Let me see," Draco barked, perhaps uncomfortable by Harry and Narcissa's casual assessment of his friendship circle… or the idle talk of murder. She couldn't be sure, "Our best bet is not to kill _any_ of them. Though, I doubt the Golden Trio is in the habit of such."

"No. Never." Ron deadpanned.

Draco rolled his eyes, his expression a mixture of disbelief and discomfort, though he was no stranger to dark action. "You want someone with a vault and pull among the olde families. Waning or otherwise-"

"And why not you?" Hermione said, brow quirked.

"Why not Harry, for that matter?" Draco said, "As if they'd allow such a union, we could be cousins-"

"And that hasn't stopped your family before."

To that, Narcissa snorted, a surprisingly unlady like action, "Draco is betrothed already."

Hermione tilted her head, "Betrothed?"

Draco made a limp sort of motion, a tired wave of hand in Harry's direction, as the man in question smiled a bit lopsidedly.

"Plans within plans," He sung, drumming fingertips across the table, "it's a good union. I assure you. Cute little Astoria needed a prince to save her - "

Draco sighed.

"- and what better prince than our dear Dragon?"

But Hermione knew it was more than that. Knew that the Greengrass position had remained stable, built on neutrality and careful manipulation. No matter how far the Malfoys had fallen, there was still power and gold in blood, in bondage and ancient magic.

In the whispers of political revolution.

The Greengrass daughter was more than just a way to keep Draco from Ministry mandate, a slave to a wife of their choosing. It was the careful handling of a precarious board. The unseen siphoning of a very hefty dowry and a promise to return the olde.

Hermione returned Harry's lopsided smile. "I see."

Because, she wasn't a fool.

"Who will influence the final decision?" Narcissa asked.

"Head of House, normally, isn't it?" Ron said.

"She has no Head," Draco muttered.

"She does now," Harry answered casually, head tilted before he placed a finger on one of the photos, "this one."

"They'll let you choose?" Draco seemed flabbergasted, surprised by the power Harry might wield despite his position. Or, maybe it was because of his position. "You think you can do it? Adjust the decision?"

"The way I see it, she _is_ a Black, as guessed by the Ministry. I am Lord Black, the Head of her House. She is my ward, with guardianship provided though Madam Malfoy - "

"-and why," Hermione interrupted, "would I be in need of guardianship? I thought it was only guidance?"

"You're a young pureblood of Sacred heritage unwed. It would be inappropriate for you to be without a guardian before you've reached your fortieth summer. But don't you worry, Hermione. Madam Malfoy will take good care of you, after all."

She pouted, a moment of petulance, but she knew that to all be true. She had asked after all, to be taken care of. Still, it was somewhat fun to be combative, even as Narcissa huffed across from her.

"The department Head of Bondage, especially if it is to be one done through magic, is obligated to contact me. A contract cannot be signed otherwise. I'll work on it from there. After all, who would know Hermione better than her best friend? Furthermore, who would the Ministry listen to if not for the Boy-Who-Lived?"

Because, that had worked so well in the past.

"Me! Maybe me?" Ron pouted.

"Ah, because she has been living with you the last few years instead of me."

"She has been! She's been living with _both_ of us!"

Just not in the eyes of the Ministry.

"So, who will it be?" Hermione said.

Harry gave her a _look_ , something mischievous and all together a bit inappropriate. "Most of these candidates are all so droll and boring. We need a person whose family will have a bit more pull and whose vaults might still be untouched… just heavily sanctioned. A person who _believes_ in the olde ways, and any new ones we bind them with."

Slowly he pulled a picture away from the bunch, out from under the watchful eye of Narcissa, and slide it over to her person. For a moment she was silent, gaze somewhat narrowed before she lips split in a smile more _cruel_ than kind. Something excited and hungry and far too _wild_ to be considered appropriate.

"But more than that," Harry continued, "We should pick someone who might be fun."

To oppress.

To control.

"And, the way I see it, a goddess needs a priestess first."

Draco swallowed audibly before her, but Narcissa nodded, apparently pleased with the choice as she stood from the table, only pausing to replace the heel Hermione had childishly taken off her foot, "I'll start the preparations. Shouldn't take too long. Dandelion has always been proficient, if not a bit rude, in her quest for prestige and power. There will be talks however, long and arduous, if we must deal with her frugality before the Ministry is presented with a decision."

And a decision they would have, carefully orchestrated and spoon-fed by their most gracious and humbled Boy-Who-Lived.

"Let's see how well we can teach Ms. Parkinson to worship."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Pansy Parkinson's abode was simple, a flat one floor building situated at the very edge of Charing Cross Road which had expanded over the years to include less Muggles and more wizards among the community. Hermione might have figured it was due to the natural yet uncontrolled expansion of Diagon Alley, which seemed to pulse with a _suffocating_ sense of strangled magic. Yet, as she stroked her fingertips across the _hot_ bricks of buildings as they passed, slick with something _other_ and corruptive…

Well, _someone_ or _something_ had driven the Muggles off long ago, legally or otherwise. Hermione figured the latter.

Still, there was beauty in the heady press of otherness that possessed the crooked buildings, in the way it caressed her fingertips like so much _heat_ and made her own magic arch like a cat starving for warmth and sunlight. So familiar, like a well-read book and a crackling fire… familiar enough for her to easily pinpoint the wavering ward that bubbled around Pansy's building - shoddy and strained, a poor protective _don't-look-here_ charm - alien and unwanted among the more ancient and mysteriously placed forces surrounding them.

Once upon a time this space must have been used for something else, something that drove out the Muggles and made way for the wizards and witches that now occupied it. Something that might have had to do with life and execution, with _pain_ and -

She sniffed. She could investigate the warbling force here later. Their mission hinged on belief, on the days spent with Draco's dwindled Circle, on the proud undeniable dominance of Harry and his power as he wove a tale of triumph about them. Only to later leash them to her newly discovered existence. Yet, while it had taken them days to convince young lords to bow, it had taken them _weeks_ to find Pansy, who clearly hadn't wished to be found. It was only after several carefully orchestrated machinations - a walk with Theodore through Diagon, under the careful and judgmental eyes of the fully functional and strategically placed Pride. A dinner with Draco in a well-attended gentry-class restaurant - before they had received a rather stern but well-timed letter:

 _So, who is it then? You or Theo, who's courting the Mudblood?_

But a return address had not been provided, and the owl that had given the delivery - thin and wiry and _mean -_ had left abruptly.

It was only when Dandelion Parkinson, Pansy's current guardian and aunt, had returned Narcissa's missive with quite a few demands and very little words of cordiality, that they'd been given her location.

Which brought them to now. Hermione, dressed in cloak as snow crunched underfoot and Theodore, her escort, in all his pureblood finery.

Her acquisition of the Nott Lord had been swift - his convincing had been efficient, for Draco held an unusual fondness for him - and while he was skeptical of her heritage he did not deny her power. She'd made _absolute_ sure of that.

But Draco had done most of the work, regaling great tales to his Circle of youthful Lords who no longer had dark imposing fathers to guide their minds. Now their hearts were open, ripe and willing and oh so _ready_ to be handed over to her on platters of silver.

He swallowed beside her, she felt his magic shift and stretch, and she gave him a look of wide-eyed innocence -

"Lord Nott?"

He blinked, eyes fluttered, as she curled her magic around him, _through him_ , stirred his blood until he was standing straighter and clutching the arm she'd looped about his own. "My Lady?"

And wasn't that just _perfect_? To hear her name rolling off his tongue with such reverence and the slightest hint of _fear_? There was still work to be done, taming to accomplish, boys to whip into strong thoughtless men… but she was fond of this one, Draco's precious seneschal, who had more reason to curse the Empire than he did her control.

One of many eager little nobles with dead or slaughtered fathers.

"I hope I'm not imposing," she said, the picture of demure, "It's just, she might feel more comfortable if a friend were present. But the boys…"

"At work, yes," he drawled, nostrils flared, "and you aren't imposing. I have a deep… understanding of the importance of our venture."

Of the importance of their entire mission.

She didn't miss his wayward gaze, how he drew it down from the twisting shadows that danced among flecks of hazel and gold that inhabited her eyes to the Turner situated around her neck, hot and pulsing against her flesh.

"We need to do something about those… eyes." He mumbled, distracted, drawn by the pull of the object, ensnared just as strongly as she was to the gravity of her own actions… but rituals had consequences and it seemed that creating a horcrux and dabbling in dark magics was not without its side-effects.

She licked her lips, "So long as the Pride of Ordinance is unaware of the change, I think we'll be fine. After all, we're only on a walk, nothing more."

"Yes, a walk to take you to see another potential candidate for marriage."

For this was not their first stop, nor their second. Since, for all Harry's talk of influence, it all still came at the price of… dating. Of seeing the various unwanted faces of unshaven crazed men - and poor Yaxley, with his ranting and raving - to the worthless, fat, and lazy of the gentry - as if she'd ever entertain the idea of binding herself to Zacharias Smith.

At least she'd managed to meet some of the Circle, for even _Goyle_ was a better choice when it came to any of Umbridge's… other picks.

But there was only one person she wanted at her heels, one person to kneel and praise that fit their purpose. And that was their current wayward flower.

"Once we cross the ward she will not be happy," Theodore groused.

Hermione laughed, a soft and twinkling thing that drew a shudder from her company, "I have waited long enough, don't you think? She has not answered the call and it is her _duty_ to obey. Don't we all have a part to play in our return to glory?"

Theodore swallowed audibly, his throat flexing, "I don't think she's very aware. She doesn't answer the owls - "

"Then, all the more reason to see to her ourselves, don't you think? Least she miss her chance to… participate."

For the _hunger_ would not wait, the dark trembling curl that swam through her belly burning and burning would not be denied.

So, they broke in, ripping down the wards in such a vicious way Hermione _knew_ Pansy would know who it was that had come to call.

Her scream, once they stepped past the rubble of a broken and smoking door, was simply _adorabl_ e.

Theodore's snort of, "Oh hush up, it's easy enough to fix." even more so.

Her mouth shut with an audible snap, and with flared nostrils she lifted her wand, a spell on the tip of her tongue, something vicious and horrid trapped in her throat. But from one blink to the next that wand - aimed solidly at Hermione and her companion - shifted, flicked toward the door that began to reconstruct itself as if it hadn't been shattered to near literal pieces.

"You were not invited," Pansy croaked through a tight throat, her grip upon her wand steadier than the tremble of her gaze. She wouldn't look at _her_ , at Hermione, dressed in her finest robes and soft smile and she certainly didn't look at Theo, whose harsh bark of laughter echoed around the pathetically bare flat Pansy had taken as her hovel.

"And for good reason, it would appear," Theo said, leaving Hermione to explore the near empty space with idle gaze so that he, himself, could stalk about with arms spread open and wide, "as if there's anything worth being invited too in your palace of garbage."

There was an audible swallow from the woman in question who stood, hunched and tense, over a long wooden table - various tools and a bubbling cauldron stacked upon it. There's a twist of something in that gaze, offense or shame Hermione can't be certain, but her neck flexes with unsaid words and a lack of denial.

And, Hermione had to be honest… the space was horrendous, small and cramped with the stench of long-boiled potions in the walls. The paint, once a cozy cream, appeared dulled and dirtied and the floor a nasty burn splotched brown that creaked with every step Theo took. There was little to claim as vibrant in the hovel and only a sad lonely bed was stacked up against the corner, mattress on the floor without a frame or box spring.

No chairs.

No receiving area.

No grand manor.

Only a lingering sense of embarrassment and what had been great loss.

Pansy glared at the table, white knuckled and breathing heavily through flared nostrils. She was the only thing in the sad little home that seemed _alive_ – if only due to her bruised pride - and even then, by just a thread. She was pale and thin with stringy greasy hair cropped in bob and black. And while her face had grown into her nose, it's refined, and almost regal look did little to help her overall appearance - dressed in wrinkled blouse and stained with only Salazar knew what. It was a sad sight to behold, this vision of her childhood bully, brought to ruin. It was enough to make Hermione wonder if this had been the _right_ choice...

But she also knew that some of the fallen had taken to ruses, to desperate and haggard appearances so they could maintain privacy when the Ministry came raiding, sniffing and searching for anything of value. Pansy might have been filthy but the fierce _loathing_ within her gaze was still noble and clear.

"And how nice it must be," Pansy hissed, gripping her wand tight enough Hermione swore she heard the wood begin to _protest_ from the pressure, "to live redeemed and refined-"

"-and clean," Theo barked suddenly, not even pretending to entertain Pansy's whining, "and don't toy with me, Parkinson. As if it's nice to be a dog - well fed or otherwise."

"And yet you judge me for my resistance?" Pansy practically snarled, all _beast_ and pureblood.

And idly Hermione wondered just how many vaults had been snatched from the other, what had _resistance_ given this woman - her poorly kept flat and little else.

"You could have lived with your Head, this is nonsense and lunacy-"

"-I won't be in that place, in that house, where the night _screams!_ "

And a portion of Hermione understood that, understood that shadows and walls ebbed with agonies that could not be flushed with the passing of years. Nightmares lurked in corners, burrowed within foundations and magic. And they, the children of Death Eaters, had not been any luckier when it came to avoiding Azkaban. She had no doubt that Head Parkinson, the last Parkinson, Dandelion, had given up a great deal of their overall wealth to keep her ward from true madness, but in the end, Pansy had fled - pretending to lead an independent life, free the judgement of the people and tradition strangled but still secretly maintained – to drown in muck.

"And why here?" Theo asked, twisting the conversation away from nightmares and lingering darkness, to suit his needs as Hermione, still ignored and left to her own, began to draw fingertips across the walls that sung, "In this place, behind all those wards? We've been looking for you for _months_ , Pansy! You'd buried yourself behind all these wards and secrets as if you had something to lose—"

"And I didn't want to be found, for months or these most recent weeks or the years that would have passed if you'd minded your own bloody business."

The silenced that followed Pansy's yell was thick and sudden, an emptiness filled with a lack of things to say and a raw amount of emotion. It was enough to make Hermione glance over, a coy gaze tossed over shoulder. She felt like a voyeur, witnessing the pressure of things that just couldn't be said, and she didn't _dare_ break the odd spell that had befallen them, both with red faces and heaving chests.

"After the war…" Pansy stated, voice controlled and soft, as if her whisper talked of forbidden subjects and unwanted memories, "they came for them. Father died trying to run, screaming his innocence in the manner most cowards do and mother was silenced in much the same way, trying to beg bravely for time to prove it. And then, they came for me."

Theo's mouth snapped open, then abruptly shut. Words set to die before they were born.

"And I, proud as I am, refused to beg. I had already _known_ something would happen. Whether _He_ won, whether He fell. Suffering for all, for everyone, but it was so much worse than that. I had already done my part of cowardice, trying to hand over _Potter_ ," and she spat his name with all the hatred one could muster for the person they blamed for their woes and suffering, "before an entire generation of would-be light soldiers. And if children and peers and _professors_ could point their wands and sneer with disgust at me, then I knew the Ministry wouldn't be much better."

She took a sharp breath then, hands opening and closing, rhythmic as her eyes finally twisted away from Theo to land directly upon _her_ , "But they didn't _kill_ me, they just took me, stumbling and sobbing over the corpses of my parents who I'd never really wanted much to do with."

And yet, Hermione knew that on some level she _had_ loved them. Death Eater supporters or otherwise. The gentry were programmed that way. To obey. To worship. To adore their blood despite abuse and suppression.

"And I wasn't the only one. You," Pansy snarled, pointing a finger at Hermione, "and you," she moved, stalking around the table, glare now upon Theo, "and so many others. All in Azkaban for crimes against wizarding-kind. All of us, tortured and lobbed together in the same little category. All of us-"

Pansy paused for a moment, lips twisted upward, head titled, "-just mud. And when my aunt, now Head, came with bags of gold and little to show for it... When _all_ our precious hidden relatives from France and Germany and Italy and elsewhere slid from the shadows to be our rescuers… When the dust had settled, and vaults were empty and I _needed_ something other than screams in the dark… where were you?"

Now Theo swallowed harshly, now he spoke with wheezing voice and downturned eyes, "You were in a bit longer and after Father was killed in the square I… It was in my… in _our_ best interest to separate for some time. Draco… even Blaise agreed. There were mind-healers to see and accounts… what was left, we had to get those in order and-"

"'Course," and in that one word the emotion seemed to leave Pansy, and she exhaled slowly, drawing fingertips across the dusty surface of her cauldron prep table. "'Course. And I came here, thrust from my own house by the magic and my aunt, who wanted me to do _more_ than shame our name and curse the Empire-"

"-and after a time, we did try to find you!" Theo hissed. "But you didn't want to be found and certainly nobody could." He paused for a moment, but quickly wheezed, "but Draco and I tried, after, when our fathers were buried and… the dust had settled."

Hermione could see Pansy tense up, could practically trace the line of muscle that bunched in her shoulders and neck as she held a trembling fist against the table she'd been drawing shapes in that very dust with.

"Pansy," Theo sighed, "please."

She didn't respond. Didn't move. Trapped between selfish indignation - though perhaps, that was earned - and the loneliness that often accompanied the shunned and forgotten.

"Listen to me," Theo tried again, stepping closer, forcing the floor to cry out with each move. "It doesn't have to be… it _never_ had to be like this. Before… before we were afraid, and it was fear and preservation that kept us all apart. The Ministry was watching, they're _always_ watching. But Draco... Draco is recreating the Circle, reviving the bond we once shared. Pansy, please, we have plans. Ideas-"

"-to get you killed before the eyes of all the Empire." Pansy snorted, and while her face was still twisted in trademark sneer, some of the flame within her had been soothed by Theo's admission. Still, "I want nothing to do with it."

"The Ministry won't allow you to be free." Hermione said, finally interjecting, with hands clasped at her front and brow raised. And Pansy, almost comically, seemed to suddenly remember again that there was an audience to her pain and her past and the years she didn't wish to remember along with the childhood she regretted. "Your best interest is to entertain those ideas and plans our Theo put so much effort into."

"Our Theo, is it?" She snarled. "I want nothing to do with him, our _dear_ Theo, and I certainly want nothing to do with you, Granger."

And, emboldened, Pansy approached her, ire and fury worn like a shield, and Hermione, with lips set to tremble in repressed smile, enjoyed the stalk and played the game. She took one, then another step backwards, relishing the brief flare of twisted delight in Pansy's gaze as thought herself the scarier witch. Theo swallowed nervously, frozen in his place, trying to stuff all his regrets back beyond the rattling of his chest.

Still, there was only so long that Hermione could play the mouse and only so much space in the apartment shared. It wasn't long before her back hit the pulsing warmth of the wall, the _taste_ of Pansy's desperation and corrupted agonies oozing in the magic there. "And why is that, Pansy? Why is it that you hide here?"

Her brow furrowed, as if she hadn't expected the question, and despite Pansy's invasion of space as she closed the last of the distance between them, she did little else - as if her very presence was enough to force Hermione's surrender.

"Have you forgotten who I am? What I've _done?_ The crimes I've seen, the people I've allowed to be hurt?" There's no regret in the low tone of the other witch, only that rolling loathing, as if the world were to blame for her circumstances, not the darkness that lurked in her being, reflected in the crack of thunder in glazed eyes, "The Ministry named me a degenerate, a supporter of His madness and death despite my lack of a mark. I tried to give up your precious Boy to save us all from slaughter and was thrown in the cage with the lot of you as if I'd committed murder. The people, this Empire, don't appreciate the former highblood. And why should they? When they blame the Sacred for their own squalor? That is what the Ministry tells them, after all, and the sheep _love_ their shepherd."

Slowly Hermione lifted a hand and set it upon the tea stained lapel Pansy's blouse. "So, you hide away in here? Devouring sadness and dread-"

"-and waiting to die when they come for my head."

Theo went statue stiff behind them, his gaze somewhat wide at Pansy's proclamation, and Hermione tilted her head in mild introspection, surprised at Pansy's easy confession.

"Because they will come for it," Pansy uttered, tone-high pitched with strangled fear, and sudden intensity, a heat that Hermione found _painfully_ familiar. "Come for all of us, eating and eating until nothing is left but the people and their hate - sharp, so sharp."

She trembled with the strength of her speech, staring at Hermione with the passion of the crazed and broken, a look Hermione knew _well_ , a look she shared as her own lips parted and bubbling laughter ripped from her chest- "And so you'll die here, consumed as the eventual scapegoat, instead of out there, ablaze?"

And Pansy blinked as if struck, her cheeks flushed red down to her neck, but she snarled all the same with a wild shake of her head, "I'll make the choice to do so. I won't be controlled by _them_. By my aunt. By propriety or gold or cages-"

The heady rocking _thud, thud, thud_ of Hermione's heart was loud and _wild_ , pushing and shoving and forcing action. She raised her hands but scarcely noticed, not until they swung together, grasping Pansy's head between them with enough force to strangle her words and created a meaty _smack_ as flesh met flesh. She held the hissing girl there, trapped between her grip, drowning in the magic that spilled off her body in a sweeping wave. And she watched it, enjoyed it, when Pansy's gaze - once alight with fury and pain - began to falter, pulsing with terror and need and longing as Hermione pushed upon the _core_ of her very being with the intention to _dominate_.

"Then I'll give you the choice to _die_ for _me._ " Hermione purred, "Drown and suffer for something _more_. If gold cannot control you. If Heads and traditions and blood no longer sway you. Than _power_ will."

And slowly, while Pansy trembled and gurgled and _moaned_ , Hermione leaned forward, gently blowing stringy hair away from an ear, so she could whisper- "The Olde Ones are calling, and magic demands your meat and flesh. Not the Empire. Not your aunt. Not even Theo."

On the floor, upon knees, and bowed as he was, consumed by the demand to serve.

"-The Ministry will skin you, use you until nothing is left. And I'll be honest, there's little difference between it and I…"

For she wished to do the same thing, to everything. To _everyone_.

"But they are content on their throne of bodies and I need sacrifice within my palace. You shall provide them."

Pansy wheezed confirmation, pupils small within a sea of white.

"Pansy Parkinson, the Lady of your household is providing preliminary contracts for a possible betrothal between us. Are you aware?"

Pansy managed a nod, despite her head being trapped within Hermione's grip.

"And yet you still avoided me, ignoring the owls from my guardians and in turn insulting my station. I _am_ Lady Hermione Dagworth-Granger Black, as seen in the eyes of the Empire, and the lords of our Circle. And I am _pissed_ , Pansy," Fingertips hooked ever so slightly, and Pansy winced from the motion of it, an action that had Hermione licking her lower lip, "If you ever call me a _Mudblood_ again, on parchment or otherwise… I'll punish you, Pansy. You'll hurt and hurt and hurt… until you know nothing else but the gospel I provide."

And that something, feral and _wicked_ within her cried out at the chance to be _free._

"You've ignored your born duty to the Circle, to the Sacred… long enough. You make us weak Pansy, and I don't do weak."

Never again. _Never again,_

"So, you're going to get cleaned up, remove yourself from this… filth, and return to your Head, as is appropriate for someone of your station."

Pansy winced, but she did not speak, could scarcely breath past the weight of Hermione's magic.

Perfect.

"And you are going to stop _hiding_. We see you Pansy, you will not be abandoned again and in return, you will not make the poor choices that brought you to be."

She'd make sure of that.

Despite their situation, there is something within the captured witch, something that was once tight and rigid, that slowly relaxes at that admission. Pansy's magic feels _heavy_ beneath her control, but no longer some live writhing thing. Yes, that's… much better.

Slowly, Hermione released the other witch, missing the warmth of her flesh beneath her palms and the pain that had dwelled in her eyes. She wasn't sure if Harry would have approved of her little display, but he would certainly be pleased with their progress here.

Slowly, Pansy took a step back, trembling from the pressure of the magic that still held her, but more under control, as she squared her shoulders and twisted on the heels of her feet, away from the now ruined thick spitting potion, with her pride as her armor. "If I'm doing this," she croaked, "then we're doing it right."

And though her voice was meant for Hermione, she sent a vicious glare to Theo, who began to struggle to his feet, though it was missing most of the earlier bite. "I'm not courting you like some _muggle_."

Hermione rumbled off a low laugh, pleased. "Then I look forward to experiencing the tradition. Do be a good Slytherin and don't _run away_. I really don't want to go on another date with Zacharias Smith."

The other witch made an odd sound on the back of her throat, something between 'insufferable know-it-all' and a quickly uttered 'right, 'course', but it was enough for Hermione, who drew in her magic and swallowed down the urge for _more_. It wouldn't be proper to… keep pushing her future betrothed.

Theo, now upon his feet, did move to grab Pansy's wrist however, and in a tone that seemed terribly sincere he whispered, "We are sorry Pansy. In that mess… after the war, everyone was so scared, and we were all so busy playing politics and licking boots that we forgot to be…"

Friends.

"We all suffered, in different ways," Theo continued, "but avoiding each other never made it better. When Draco called us… Pansy, this plan, I really _do_ think it will work. Granger really is…" He swallowed harshly. He didn't say it, couldn't compare her to _Him_ , but she knew he wanted to. "She's strong, but _still sane._ We have a chance. The Ministry cannot continue to run as it is. I'm not too proud to say I'm sorry and Draco really does miss you, we all do. We won't let them break our Circle again. We'll destroy the entirety of Great Britain before we become their fodder."

For a moment there was nothing but silence. Silence. Emotion. Contemplation. Forgiveness…

Pansy's shoulders slumped, her exhaustion evident, but it was clear she was no longer enchained by her worries and woes. Hermione intended to replace them with a different sort of bondage.

"Thank you," she whispered, then stronger, she repeated it. "Thank you."

Before she turned to them both with a sneer and snarled, "Now get out of my house."

* * *

I write other fiction too, next update will be for Reign Down, and you can learn or talk about it on my Discord Server, where I'll give updates and chill around with the gang. Discord code: bxhZ9cr


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